Nearly one third of all states that still have a death penalty system have not used it in at least a decade.
There are 31 states, plus the federal government and military that still allow the death penalty. Of the inactive states, New Hampshire has gone the longest without an execution with their last dating back to 1939. The other inactive states include California, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming.
For those on death row in California, the largest death row in the country population-wise, the leading causes of death are natural causes, followed by suicide. Executions come in a distant third.
On the federal level, there has not been an execution since 2003, and the military has not carried out an execution in 57 years.
We’ll just take this as further evidence that the appetite for the death penalty is declining in the country, even in states that have yet to formally do away with the system. Instead of continuing to waste millions of taxpayer dollars every year, states should repeal their death penalty laws and direct the resources to programs that actually deter violence.
In 2016 and 2017, Republicans introduced one-third of all death penalty repeal bills in state legislatures across the country.
With a 60% decrease in death penalty sentences since 1999 and an execution rate down 45% since that same time, it’s been apparent that the death penalty is dying in the United States for quite some time. What hasn’t been so apparent, however, is the Right’s responsibility for this trend.
Considering the nation’s death penalty system is plagued with issues of ineffective legal counsel, geographical bias, innocence, racial discrimination, and astronomical costs, it’s no wonder conservatives are deciding that this practice does not align with their values.
Not only that, but there is ample proof that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent. In fact, regions of the country who do not utilize their death penalty as often, such as the Northeast, have very low homicide rates, while areas that use the death penalty the most, like the South, continue to see the highest rates of violent crime.
A new report out of Tennessee documents the state of the death penalty system in the Volunteer State, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.
Tennessee, which just this month executed its first person in nearly a decade, has a track record fraught with mistakes including three exonerations and a staggering rate of death sentences reversed or vacated by the courts due to issues such as ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and innocence. In fact, of the 192 individuals that the state has sentenced to death since 1977, over half (106) have seen their sentences or convictions vacated.
In addition to the glaring innocence issues within the death penalty, the report provides ample evidence that the state’s system is also overrun with issues of arbitrariness. These same problems are what led to the death penalty being banned in the late 1970’s.
In the landmark Supreme Court case, Furman vs. Georgia, the court struck down the constitutionality of the nation’s death penalty system based on evidence that it was applied to “a capriciously selected random handful,” who ended up on death row due to factors such as geography and race, and less because of the nature of their crime.
Across the country, states are facing lawsuits from drug manufacturers who do not want their product used in the execution process.
As state governments have become increasingly desperate to secure lethal injection drugs, many have attempted to shroud the process in secrecy to prevent the general public and even the suppliers from knowing what drugs are being used.
These actions not only present freedom of association issues, they are also a very clear sign that the market has spoken. The death penalty is bad for business, and manufacturers, which have often spent millions of dollars and many years to bring a medication to the market, do not want their product damaged by the country’s appalling death penalty system.
The Los Angeles Times reports, “The drugmakers’ basic argument is that they create and market their products to alleviate suffering and heal the sick. Using them to kill runs counter to their intent, stigmatizes the drugs as lethal, and links the companies — against their will — with the intentional killing of human beings.
CCATDP’s National Manager, Hannah Cox, joined the organization’s State Coordinator for Tennessee, Amy Lawrence, in calling on Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to act swiftly yesterday.
In an open letter posted in the Commercial Appeal, they implored Tennessee’s Governor to commute the sentence of a man with severe mental illness scheduled for an execution this coming Thursday. The execution would be the state’s first in nearly ten years and only its seventh since reinstatement in 1976. The state has exonerated four people during that same time period over innocence issues.
The man, Billy Ray Irick, was institutionalized at the age of eight and grew up in an orphanage for the majority of his childhood. Despite numerous witnesses who attested to his psychotic break at the time of the crime, his illness was never brought up at trial.
You can read the full letter here.
We’re proud to see 6 time Grammy Award winner and 22 time Dove Award winner Amy Grant take a stand against the death penalty. More and more Christians are realizing the death penalty does not align with their values.
*Photo courtesy of Shane Claiborne
Pope Francis has declared the death penalty wrong in all cases, marking one of the biggest shifts ever in the 2,000 year old history of the Roman Catholic Church.
Francis said executions were unacceptable in all cases because they are “an attack” on human dignity, and the Vatican added that it will work “with determination” to abolish capital punishment worldwide.
Many Catholics across our country have already determined that the death penalty fails to value the sanctity of human life, deter violence, or disrupt cycles of trauma. For them, this change in the Church’s teaching is a reassuring and encouraging move. For others who may be on the fence about their stance, we hope this action causes them to research the death penalty in more depth.
Last week, staff from Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP) sponsored the Young Americans for Liberty Conference in Reston, VA. While there, they met hundreds of high school students, college students, and young adults who are passionate about limited government, and many of whom agreed, it’s past time to end the death penalty.
This article was originally published on FEE.org
From the Postal Service to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the government has proven to be as ineffective as Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy. Conservatives, for the most part, understand the inefficient nature of government, and that’s why they often advocate for free-market policies.
However, there’s one issue where conservatives often give far too much power to the government: capital punishment. Here, many Republicans allow their “tough on crime” mentality to overrule limited government ideals and innate skepticism of state overreach.
This contradiction within the Republican platform, although rarely acknowledged, exposes a weakness in the party’s ideology. If Republicans pride themselves on their limited government philosophy, then why would they grant the government control over life and death?
While many Republicans pride themselves on their unapologetic use of the death penalty, its enactment is both inefficient and ineffective.
Take Texas, for example—arguably the nation’s most conservative state.
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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