Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state’s death penalty statute and commuted the sentences of all 8 men who were on death row. The court ruled that the law was unconstitutional “because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.”

Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst, writing for the court’s majority, cited a recent crime analysis produced by University of Washington sociologists that found significant variations across counties in the application of the death penalty, and that also found black offenders were four times more likely to receive a death sentence in the state than their white peers. Due to these findings, the court held that the death penalty lacked fundamental fairness and thereby violated the state’s constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

With Thursday’s ruling, Washington becomes the 20^th state to overturn or abolish death as a legal punishment. Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who previously supported the death penalty before issuing a moratorium on executions in the state in 2014, said he expects this ruling to end the debate over capital punishment in the state once and for all.

At the end of October, we’re heading to Louisiana for a string of events across the state that will examine the reasons those on both the left and right are turning against the death penalty. We’ll also be talking about the state’s history with the criminal justice system, and looking at other pressing reforms in the state, such as unanimous juries, that impact those caught up in the system.

We hope you’ll join us for an event!

Monday, October 29th | Lake Charles, La | Public Forum

Tuesday, October 30th | Baton Rouge, LA | Panel at LSU’s Law School | Special Guest Death Row Exoneree Damon Thibodeaux

Thursday, November 1st | New Orleans, LA | Tulane University | Hosted by Young Americans for Liberty

Today is the 16th Annual World Day Against the Death Penalty.

Almost three quarters (143 countries) of the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Last year in only 11.5% of the total number of countries of the world, people were executed.

At CCATDP, we’ll continue to work to make the U.S. another country that removes this senseless, wasteful system.

You can read more here.

Our National Manager, Hannah Cox, published an article at Newsmax this week in observance of Wrongful Conviction Day.

In her latest piece, Cox points out the frequency of wrongful convictions and examines the problems in the criminal justice system that lead to them.

Some of the reasons include eyewitness misidentification, misapplication of forensic evidence, and false confessions.

Read her article here.

Today, October 2nd, is the fifth annual observance of Wrongful Conviction Day. This is a time that the international community has set aside to raise awareness of the causes and remedies of wrongful conviction and to recognize the tremendous personal, social, and emotional costs of wrongful conviction for innocent people and their families.

At Conservatives Concerned, we know that of the thousands of wrongful convictions in the United States 163 individuals have served time on death row for a crime they did not commit. We also know that the likelihood more innocent people are still trapped on death row and may be executed is exceedingly high.

This is one of the many reasons we continue to fight for an end to the death penalty. It should surprise no conservative that a government that is incapable of balancing a budget or preventing fraud is also incapable of ensuring justice for all. Because of this, the government should never be given the power over life and death.

American political commentator and Pulitzer Prize winner, George F. Will, is out with a fantastic new article in the Washington Post calling for the abolition of the death penalty.

In the piece, Will details the case of an Alabama man, Vernon Madison, who the state has repeatedly tried to execute through unconstitutional means. Madison’s first case was thrown out due to the state’s exclusion of African Americans from the jury, and his second trial was thrown out due to inadmissible evidence being inserted into the record. Finally, during his third trial, a judge disregarded the juries’ recommendation of a life imprisonment sentence and again imposed the death penalty on Madison.

All along the way, evidence of Madison’s mental illness has been ignored, and now, he no longer remembers the crime that put him on death row due to a series of strokes, dementia, and degenerative disease.

Will expertly details the numerous constitutional problems with Madison’s case and the US Supreme Court’s dance around what constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” He closes the article with this statement:

Conservatives have their own standards, including this one: The state — government — already is altogether too full of itself, and investing it with the power to inflict death on anyone exacerbates its sense of majesty and delusions of adequacy.

The leader of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is now a Newsmax Insider. Twice a month, Hannah Cox will be writing about the failures of the criminal justice system and especially the death penalty.

Newsmax is a leading conservative news outlet that receives nearly 70,000 unique daily visitors. The company is ranked as the 3rd most trafficked political website.

You can follow her blog Life and Liberty here and read her first article, “Do You Support the Death Penalty,” here.

Our National Manager, Hannah Cox, joined Connor Boyack, President of the Libertas Institute in Utah, and his cohost Bryan Hyde on their podcast Society and the State this week.

On the episode, the three discussed the death penalty system in the US and the reasons each of them changed their stance from supporters to abolitionists.

From the show’s website: “Concern over the death penalty isn’t just limited to bleeding hearts and liberals. It’s not a matter of coddling criminals. DNA evidence and other technological advances are proving that genuinely innocent people are sitting on Death Row or have been executed. Questions about the inefficiency, inequity and inaccuracy within the justice system mean that opposition to the death penalty is finding acceptance in conservative circles as well.”

Check out the show and help us share it on social media!

You can listen to the full episode here.