Clay Today, a Florida news service, published an article this morning describing the broad coalition aligning in Jacksonville, FL to oppose the death penalty. The coalition includes organizations from both the political right and the left. CCATDP’s Heather Beaudoin spoke with the Clay Today reporter, Harry Shorstein, to discuss the conservative case against the death penalty. Horstein wrote,
“As an evangelical Christian, I think we need to care about the redemption of every person, no matter what they’ve done. I completely understand the desire for vengeance, but our death penalty system is broken beyond our care due to the cost, innocent people being sentenced to death, the harm the appeals process brings to victims’ families and the racial and economic disparity,” said Heather Beaudoin, an advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.
She said matters of life and death are too important to be entrusted to a broken criminal justice system ran by what many conservatives feel is a broken government that can’t be trusted.
Friend of CCATDP, Mohammed Shaker wrote an op-ed for the conservative publication, Rare. Shaker describes why he believes that the death penalty isn’t in line with conservatism or libertarianism. He wrote,
Bottom line, there is no reversing an error after a death sentence is carried out.
Human life is far too precious, something driven home to me in my military experience. As a combat medic in Iraq I cared for others, nursed them back to health, and tried to save lives regardless of race, creed, or religion.
But I‘ve learned that in our country people of color and those living in poverty disproportionately receive death penalty, compared to those with status, influence, and wealth.
This is patently unfair and un-American.
Writing one day before Independence Day, Shaker also stated,
A system that can deprive even one innocent person of life and liberty, compromises liberty for us all. This Independence Day, let’s embrace the principles and values that bind us as a nation and commit ourselves to ending the death penalty once and for all.
CCATDP’s Ben Jones was published by Young Americans for Liberty today. He described Nebraska’s effort to abolish capital punishment and what that move represents. He wrote,
Efforts to end the death penalty took a monumental step forward yesterday. Despite a veto from Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, the Nebraska Legislature overrode the Governor’s veto and passed legislation repealing the state’s death penalty, making it the first red state to do so since North Dakota in the 1970s.
However, Jones said the “monumental step” was accomplished because,
…Republican senators joined a bi-partisan coalition working to repeal the death penalty. These Republicans had principled reasons for opposing the death penalty…
And Jones predicts more change to come. He said,
Given the persistent problems plaguing the death penalty, Nebraska likely will not be the last state to scrap it. Expect more states, red and blue alike, to follow Nebraska’s lead.
CCATDP’s Heather Beaudoin recently published an article in the Intellectual Conservative. She highlighted the marked change among Evangelicals’ support for the death penalty. She wrote,
In recent years, the Evangelical world has dramatically changed its thinking on capital punishment, as evidenced by the state of Nebraska just abolishing its death penalty. Evangelical and Christian legislators were at the forefront of the repeal effort there.
Beaudoin also said that the youth are an integral part of the change in the Evangelical world:
A recent Barna poll shows that millennial Christians (born after 1980) are overwhelmingly against execution. In fact, fewer than 5-percent of Americans think Jesus would support the death penalty. Many young people are longing for a Christianity that looks more like Christ and they are finding it hard to reconcile executions with the executed and risen Lord, who said, “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.”
She closed, saying,
Evangelicals throughout the nation are not only taking note of conservative Nebraska getting rid of capital punishment, they are also becoming increasingly aware of one key faith-based reason behind it – the desire to fully embrace a culture of life, from birth to natural death.
On May 27, Nebraska became the first Republican controlled state to repeal the death penalty in over 40 years. They did so after voting overwhelmingly four times to end capital punishment, defeating a filibuster and even the governor’s veto.
It’s easy to understand why a conservative state would want to abolish a dangerous, costly, and unnecessary government program like the death penalty. A mere days after Nebraska moved away from capital punishment, yet another man was released from death row because he was wrongly sentenced to die. Alfred Dewayne Brown spent 10 years on Texas’ death row despite evidence confirming his alibi, primarily because a police officer repeatedly threatened his girlfriend into contradicting his alibi.
CCATDP supporter Dr. Ron Paul penned an op-ed expanding on the reasons why he opposes the death penalty and why others should likewise be concerned. He called the death penalty “The ultimate corrupt, big government program” and wrote, “Until the death penalty is abolished, we will have neither a free nor a moral society.”
CCATDP supporter, Dr. Ron Paul expressed in detail why he cannot support the death penalty program in a recent op-ed. When discussing the cost of capital punishment, he wrote,
It is hard to find a more wasteful and inefficient government program than the death penalty.
But Dr. Paul understands that its failures are not limited to fiscal world. He said,
Despite all the time and money spent to ensure that no one is wrongly executed, the system is hardly foolproof. Since 1973, one out of every ten individuals sentenced to death has been released from death row because of evidence discovered after conviction.
The former Presidential candidate doesn’t believe it is wise to entrust this power to a government that makes mistakes. He wrote,
It is not surprising that the government wastes so much time and money on such a flawed system. After all, corruption, waste, and incompetence are common features of government programs ranging from Obamacare to the TSA to public schools to the post office.
Alex Mierjeski from ATTN interviewed me following the victory in Nebraska to discuss why conservatives are becoming the new face of opposition to the death penalty. He wrote,
“I think that the conservative case against the death penalty couldn’t be simpler,” he told ATTN: over the phone. “It risks innocent life, so it’s not pro-life; it costs more than life without parole, so it’s not fiscally responsible; and I don’t believe that giving an error-prone state the power to kill its citizens is a form of limited government.”
“To see a state-–a very conservative state like Nebraska––rid itself of the death penalty doesn’t surprise me,” he continued. “This is what conservatives are elected to do…repeal broken, wasteful government programs. I think that for a long time conservatives bought into this mindset of a so-called ‘tough on crime’ mindset that’s led to, really, a disaster in our criminal justice system. Essentially it’s in our principles to oppose the death penalty because it’s antithetical to our ideals.”
Governing Magazine published an op-ed that I wrote detailing why the death penalty is more expensive than life-without-parole and where these high costs are incurred. I said,
Studies have repeatedly found that the death penalty is more expensive and time consuming than its alternatives at every step of the process and that capital punishment’s costs are rising. These high costs are driven, in part, by government mandates and the desire to avoid executing an innocent person. In an era when fiscal mismanagement and wasteful government programs are the status quo, capital punishment is a prime example of financial irresponsibility. That’s why, more and more, conservatives are turning against it.
Recently, I was a guest on Utah’s Red Meat Radio, Georgia’s A Closer Look on WABE, and the Capitol Hill Show with Tim Constantine. I discussed Nebraska’s death penalty repeal, the increased opposition to capital punishment, and the conservative case against 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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