CCATDP supporter and Young Americans for Liberty’s Florida chairwoman, Brittany Turner penned an op-ed in response to an author’s call to execute James Holmes. The Central Florida Future ran the article, and Turner highlighted the death penalty’s many nagging issues including risk to life, high cost, failure to deter crime, and the harm it inflicts upon victims’ families. She wrote,
However, Holmes is severely mentally ill and schizophrenic. He does not have the ability to interpret reality normally. I believe it is highly immoral for anyone to suggest execution for mentally ill people who do not understand the consequences of their actions.
If Holmes had received death, his victims’ families would have been sentenced to decades, if not a lifetime, of enduring a long and tortuous appeals process and having to re-live that horrific experience over and over again. How is that justice?
She continued,
If the threat of capital punishment actually did act as a deterrent, and if it actually did make us safer by “protecting Americans,” there wouldn’t be such high murder and violent crime rates in the biggest death penalty states.
First published in Voices of Liberty on 9/23/2015
September 23, 2015—Last year, Dr. Ron Paul, Richard Viguerie, evangelical leaders, and others created waves by calling on Texas officials to halt a severely mentally ill man’s execution. A temporary stay was issued in order to reexamine his case, but he is still at risk. His attorneys have a very simple request. They are asking the state to appoint counsel and provide only the necessary resources to investigate whether he is too incompetent to be executed, which, if true, would be a clear constitutional violation.
By all accounts, Scott Panetti is guilty of murder. On September 8, 1992, dressed in paramilitary attire, he forced his way into Joe and Amanda Alvarado’s home, who were his in-laws, and shot them at close range, killing them both. Then, Panetti proceeded to change into a dress suit and turn himself into the authorities. He was quickly and rightly charged with the Alvarado’s murder. However, the prosecution asserted that he was merely an addict who on his own cognizance committed a calculated and nefarious act, and he was promptly convicted and sentenced to death.
The Week’s Eric Pfeiffer covered the growing conservative opposition to the death penalty and interviewed death row exoneree, Ray Krone, and myself for his article. Pfeiffer wrote,
Their outreach specialist is a man named Marc Hyden, a former campaign field representative for the National Rifle Association who argues that opposing capital punishment is a natural philosophical fit for tough-minded conservatives.
“Point to a single government program that works flawlessly. Death penalty supporters have to accept that it’s a human-run program and so my question is, how many innocent people are you willing to execute?” Hyden told me.
The fallibility of government is just one of several strategic points from which Hyden and his conservative constituency come at capital punishment. They are also quick to point out that putting someone to death is far more expensive than simply keeping them in prison. Then there’s the empirical data challenging whether the threat of execution is truly a disincentive for would-be criminals. Some anecdotal accounts challenge whether families of victims benefit in any measurable way from seeing a perpetrator put to death.
Late last month, the Kansas Federation of College Republicans (KFCR) released an official statement calling for the death penalty’s end. The state chairman, Dalton Glasscock, stated, “We believe in promoting a culture of life from conception to natural death. The effort is to make a more consistent policy — that we do stand for all life.” KFCR joins the Kansas Republican Liberty Caucus, who passed a resolution supporting repeal in 2014, and around the same time, the Kansas Republican Party removed the pro-death penalty plank from its platform.
While efforts for repeal in Kansas are making national headlines, the debate over Nebraska’s capital punishment system is not settled yet. After a petition drive, primarily funded by Governor Ricketts and his father, the issue will be placed on the ballot. After the legislature resoundingly repealed the death penalty, Nebraska voters will also have the opportunity to voice their opposition to a broken, wasteful, and dangerous government program. The referendum will be included on Nebraska’s 2016 ballot.
If you missed it, you hear me on Jacksonville, Florida’s NPR affiliate, WJCT. I presented the conservative case against the death penalty and fielded a host of questions from various callers. You can listen to the segment here.
I recently penned an op-ed about Burt and Anita Folsom’s book, Death on Hold. In it, they tell the amazing story of a man who committed a terrible crime but found salvation on death row. I wrote,
While in jail awaiting his trial, Rutledge observed a young prisoner hiding under a table reading a Bible. Learning that the youth was being harassed by a jailhouse bully, Rutledge intervened on his behalf. Rutledge had never prayed before, but that night he prayed, “God, the little dude under the table said his mother said if you want to know if God is real, ask God to touch you. God, I’m asking You to touch me.” Rutledge later said, “Immediately, a beautiful, warm feeling came over me.”
However, his story did not end there. He became a Christian, role model, and exemplary inmate:
He continued his relationship with God and ministered to fellow death-row inmates, but his family and friends had deserted him. “God, I said I am alone,” Rutledge pleaded.
KENTUCKY CONSERVATIVES LAUNCH GROUP
QUESTIONING THE DEATH PENALTY
Organizational meeting Wednesday, October 14th at 7pm
October 7, 2015 – Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP), a national network of conservatives and libertarians questioning the alignment of capital punishment with their principles, is pleased to announce it will be taking part in an event with Northern Kentucky Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (NKCCATDP).
NKCCATDP, a project of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, will be holding an organizational meeting in Covington on the evening of October 14th (details below).
“I remember as a young teenager asking a mentor of mine a simple question: Does it make sense to execute a person in order to affirm how much society cares about human life?” said Andrew Vandiver, a supporter of NKCCATDP. “I have revisited this question over the years and have never received an answer that satisfies my concern that the death penalty conflicts with the viewpoint that all life is sacred.”
Julie Delegal from Folio Weekly recently covered the Farah family’s anguish over the state’s attorney’s decision to seek the death penalty in their family member’s murder. Delegal described the crime that resulted in Shelby Farah’s death,
Caleb Farah is 18 years old. He was 16 when his sister, Shelby, was robbed at gunpoint and murdered at the Metro PCS store she managed on North Main Street. The heinous act was captured by video surveillance, and there is no real dispute as to the killer’s identity, 23-year-old James Rhodes.
The alleged offender is facing the death penalty, despite the family’s pleas to the local state’s attorney,
“I don’t want the death penalty,” Darlene Farah says, adding that she’s urged the state attorney’s office to accept Rhodes’ plea ever since his attorneys made the offer, a year-and-a-half ago.
Her requests have been ignored, and unfortunately, her family has experienced the additional trauma that the process inflicts upon murder victims’ friends and families. Justice for Jacksonville is working towards addressing their local death penalty system’s problems.
The Week’s Bonnie Kristian wrote about the expected execution of Richard Glossip, despite serious questions regarding his verdict. He received a temporary stay of execution at the last moment because new evidence was introduced. Kristian wrote,
Glossip was sentenced to death after he refused to confess to the killing he says he did not order. His case has attracted considerable attention because of the lack of physical evidence against him and contradictory statements from the confessed killer, who pointed to Glossip as the mastermind to escape being placed on death row himself.
“The Glossip case bears many of the hallmarks of the wrongful convictions that plague the death penalty system — inept defense attorneys, zero physical evidence, and the reliance on the testimony of a single person,” said Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.
Questioning a system marked by inefficiency, inequity, and inaccuracy.
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is a network of political and social conservatives who question the alignment of capital punishment with conservative principles and values.
We are a project of Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty in the United States.
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