The Hufffington Post’s Kim Bellware has been following a developing story in Texas where the legislature is considering a bill to exempt the mentally ill from the death penalty. Bellware stated,
People who can prove they were affected by severe mental illness when they committed a capital crime would be exempt from the death penalty under a new Texas law introduced Tuesday.
Mental health advocates joined state Rep. Toni Rose (D) as she introduced HB 3080 and presented it as a humane and cost-saving measure that would still allow a convicted killer to be punished.
Bellware continued,
“This is something we’re seeing across the U.S. — a lot of conservative states are moving in this direction and you’re going to see more Republican support,” said Marc Hyden, the national advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.
“If there’s any state that should be pushing this, it is Texas,” Hyden said. “That’s where Scott Panetti was sent to die.”
Panetti’s case has been cited by advocates of severe mental illness exemptions (including a former Tennessee attorney general) as an example of why such death penalty reforms are needed.
The Washington Examiner recently covered Alabama’s bizarre system in which a judge may override a jury’s decision to sentence someone to life rather than death, but that may soon change.
According the the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli,
Alabama is the only state in the country that allows its judges to override juries to give criminals the death penalty instead of a life sentence. That 1976 policy might soon go by the wayside under legislation moving through the statehouse to rescind a judge’s ability to overrule a jury recommendation.
Republican state Sen. Dick Brewbaker said he supports the death penalty, but sponsored his bill to reform a policy that he says is used much more often when judges are up for re-election.
CCATDP’s Heather Beaudoin was also interviewed for this story:
“There are so many conservatives who don’t support the death penalty anymore,” said Heather Beaudoin, national coordinator for Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.
Aside from shifting public opinion, Beaudoin pointed to the financial cost of the death penalty.
Kate Scanlon of the Blaze interviewed me earlier this week in advance of our CPAC appearance. She asked me to present the conservative case against the death penalty to her and to describe what kind of experience we expect at CPAC later this week.
Scanlon wrote,
Marc Hyden, the national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty told TheBlaze that the death penalty “risks innocent lives” at the hands of government.
“If we’re risking innocent lives, I don’t think we can call that pro-life,” Hyden said.
Hyden argued that it costs millions more in taxpayer funds to execute a prisoner than it does to sentence them to life without parole, making an execution neither “fiscally responsible or prudent.”
“There’s nothing limited about giving an error-prone government the power to kill its citizens, especially since this is the same government who had a hard enough time launching a health care website,” Hyden said, referring to the botched roll-out of the Obamacare website.
Hyden, who once worked for the National Rifle Association, said he was used to receiving support from conservatives at conferences such as CPAC, so he was a little apprehensive about the reaction he would get when he started arguing against the death penalty.
CCATDP’s Heather Beaudoin was a guest on the Q with a View radio show. She presented the conservative and Christian cases against the death penalty. If you missed the live show, then you can listen to the archived segment here.
Late last month, after serving several years on Delaware’s death row, Isaiah McCoy was released and acquitted of the murder for which he was originally convicted. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the testimonies that were used against him were inconsistent. Despite this, McCoy was sentenced to die, but after receiving a new trial, he was acquitted of murder. Upon hearing the news, McCoy wept and said that he plans on spending the coming days with his daughters. McCoy is the 157th person to be released from death row due to a wrongful conviction.
The inherent risk to innocent lives is one of the primary factors driving conservatives’ opposition to the death penalty, and this was on display in Montana earlier this month. Conservative State Representative Adam Hertz sponsored a bill to repeal capital punishment, and a host of conservatives assembled at the capitol to participate in a press conference to urge the legislature to end the state’s death penalty. Many others also testified in support of repeal during the bill’s hearing.
Earlier this week, I was interviewed by Todd “Bubba” Horwitz on his Chicago-based radio show. Today, this previously recorded radio segment was finally broadcasted. Throughout the interview, Todd and I discuss the conservative rationale for repealing the death penalty and how, despite many attempts, all previous death penalty reforms have failed, which means repealing capital punishment is the only acceptable option. If you missed the live show, you can listen to the archived version here. Just look for the February 21st broadcast.
Conservative reporter and friend of CCATDP, Danny Huizinga, published an article with Opportunity Lives in which he explained why conservatives should spearhead efforts to repeal the death penalty. Huizinga’s reasoning is simple.
He wrote,
“Conservatives should take the lead on opposing the death penalty because it is inaccurate, inequitable and inefficient.”
Huizinga went on to highlight many of the issues plaguing the death penalty, including risk to innocent lives, high costs, and its failure as a public policy. Huizinga also asked me to weigh in on the story, which he reported:
“Conservatives are increasingly advocating for the death penalty’s repeal because it violates our core tenets of valuing life and promoting fiscal responsibility and limited government,” Marc Hyden, the national advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, told Opportunity Lives. “Capital punishment inherently and repeatedly risks innocent lives, costs far more than life without parole, and it gives an error-prone state an immense power over the people.”
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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