Newsmax recently had me as a guest on Ed Berliner’s television show, Midpoint. Following the interview was a blog post from Newsmax reporting on the state of the death penalty and the interview. The author, Sean Piccoli said,
Subjecting the death penalty to “a conservative litmus test,” Marc Hyden, National Coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner that the policy fails on at least three counts.
“You risk killing innocent life, so it’s not pro-life,” said Hyden. “It costs more than life without parole, so it’s not fiscally responsible. And I don’t think giving our government the power to kill U.S. citizens — I don’t think that’s limited government.”
Piccoli went on to discuss lethal injection protocols and said,
Other companies still make chemicals that are presented as a more humane form of capital punishment than the gas chamber or the electric chair., but death-penalty states want those companies’ identities kept secret to shield them from reprisals.
Hyden said there is “no reason” for a “lethal injection protocol shrouded in secrecy.”
Recently, the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Jim Galloway wrote a column about Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty and the conservative case against today’s system of capital punishment. Galloway said,
The liberal argument is that executions are a type of cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the U.S. Constitution. Hyden and his group tread more practical ground.
The death penalty isn’t fiscally responsible. “Everybody knows it’s more expensive than life without parole,” he argued. Single death penalty cases have driven some communities close to bankruptcy.
The process of litigation, which averages 15 years per case, is a torture to the families of the victims. “It promises them a death sentence,” Hyden said. “That promise, because of what happens in appeals, and what happens with the juries – it’s not always kept.”
The death penalty doesn’t work as a deterrent. Texas executes more people than any other state, Hyden points out. But the state’s murder rate hasn’t declined as a result.
But Hyden kept coming back to the fact that we keep finding people on death rows across the country who don’t belong there.
Death Penalty Concerns On Display
At Upcoming Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference
June 16, 2014 – Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP), a national network of conservatives questioning the alignment of capital punishment with their principles, will be exhibiting at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s upcoming ‘Road to Majority’ policy conference in the nation’s capital.
The annual gathering is one of the premier events for grassroots conservative citizen activists of faith. It comes at a time when conservatives, and especially conservatives of faith, are increasingly voicing their concerns about capital punishment as well as other criminal justice reform issues.
Richard A. Viguerie, one of CCATDP’s founding members, said, “Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation, which we conservatives know are rife with injustice. But here the end result is the end of someone’s life. In other words, it’s a government system that kills people.” Viguerie will also be a speaker at the Road to Majority Conference, speaking about other criminal justice reform issues.
Please watch Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty‘s video, To Honor Life, which includes participation from Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.
Mark Strauss of io9, a blog launched by Gawker media that focuses on futurism, predicted that conservatives of the future will reject the use of capital punishment. Strauss points to Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty’s work and growth as evidence for this claim as well as falling national support for the death penalty. Strauss said,
[A] growing group of conservatives say it’s time to reject a policy that they describe as an anti-life intrusion by big government. Is this the future of conservative politics?
Writing in the Boston Globe, Leon Neyfakh profiles activists across the country who have come to the conclusion that execution by the state is an affront to the core principles that conservatives claim to espouse.
Leon Neyfahk of the Boston Globe published an in-depth look into why many conservatives are opposing the death penalty. Neyfahk interviewed conservative icon, Richard Viguerie, conservative journalist, Ramesh Ponnuru, and myself. Neyfahk covers Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty and the conservative momentum growing against capital punishment as he poses the question,
Can a few thinkers convince their party that a winning GOP issue is actually a costly, ineffective, anti-life boondoggle?
Leon Nefahk concludes that the death penalty runs contrary to many conservatives’ core beliefs. He lays out the conservative case against the death penalty quite simply. He said,
People who share a deep worry about government overreach, who believe in the sanctity of life, and who place great importance on fiscal responsibility should not support a policy that empowers the state to spend large sums of money.
The botched execution of Clayton Lockett cast the national spotlight on the current death penalty system. Lockett was given a combination of untested execution drugs, which were acquired through a secret source. He failed to die after 10 minutes of receiving the drugs. The execution was stayed, and he died of a heart attack 45 minutes later.
Conservatives and evangelicals alike reacted with dismay, and many vocally rejected the failing system of capital punishment. The poor execution protocol and lack of transparency is yet another byproduct of this broken system, which more and more conservatives are questioning.
Most recently, conservative icon, Colonel Oliver North reaffirmed his opposition to the death penalty in a Politisite article written by Kevin Williams. Colonel North said, “I’m a “law and order” guy. Don’t get me wrong. Individuals need to be held accountable. I don’t believe in mass punishments and group responsibilities and the kinds of fuzzy-wuzzy stuff of the Left, but I have always felt… and always said that there are very serious questions about the justice of 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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