The Oklahoma legislature passed a bill to introduce a new method of execution – nitrogen gas, and I was recently interviewed by Sputnik News on this topic. The author, Thomas Zimmer wrote,
Oklahoma and other US states are using untested drug cocktails to execute prisoners, including nitrogen gas, even though they do not yet know the actual effects on the prisoners and whether the method is painful, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty Advocacy Coordinator Marc Hyden told Sputnik on Friday.
He also said,
Hyden explained that the effect of using nitrogen gas on inmates is unknown and may lead to unintended physical as well as legal consequences.
The problem, Hyden argued, is not just the use of nitrogen gas:
“The whole death penalty system is an utterly flawed system. Using nitrogen gas is just a fix and an act of desperation in trying to keep a broken [death penalty] program afloat.”
Katharine Orr, former Florida Chair of Young Americans for Liberty and friend of CCATDP, wrote an op-ed on the Florida death penalty. It was published yesterday in Voices of Liberty and highlighted the many reasons why Floridians should be concerned with their faulty capital punishment system. She wrote,
Florida has wrongly sentenced more people to death than any other state – 25. This is an embarrassing and frightful distinction.
Katharine continued,
Capital cases in Florida are also much more expensive than life-without-parole cases. Studies have suggested that the state could easily save millions of dollars just by replacing the death penalty with life without the possibility of release. Capital cases affect state and local budgets too, and they have even risked the solvency of municipalities due to the high fiscal burden.
As she closed, she said,
The death penalty exemplifies the shortcomings in our criminal justice system, and Florida’s capital punishment program is one of the most broken systems in the nation. As an advocate for limited government, I find it unreasonable to allow the State to execute U.S.
Daniella Silva, reporting for NBC News, covered Anthony Ray Hinton’s release from death row. She said,
One of the longest serving Alabama death row inmates will walk free on Friday after a judge dismissed the capital murder charges against him, finding there was not enough evidence to link him to the crimes.
Anthony Ray Hinton, who was on death row for nearly 30 years, had been charged and convicted in the 1985 murders of two Birmingham area fast-food managers.
She wrote,
Political network Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty issued a statement Thursday night on Hinton’s exoneration, saying: “Because of inept legal representation and faulty forensics, he has lost 30 years of his life, which he spent on death row, and could have easily been wrongly executed by the State of Alabama. The ease at which people are wrongly convicted and sentenced to death is appalling and should give conservatives pause.”
Last Saturday, I was a guest on Brian Lonergan’s radio show, Liberty Drive. We discussed why the death penalty program stands in contrast to conservatism and why more individuals view capital punishment as a broken government program. You can hear the entire segment here.
I was recently interviewed by Brett LogGuirato of Fusion about Utah’s legislation to reinstate the firing squad as a method of execution. LoGuirato wrote,
Marc Hyden considers Utah’s reintroduction of the firing squad as an “act of desperation”
He continued,
“They’re running out of ways to kill people properly, and they’re running to something that was used pretty long ago,” Hyden, the national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, told Fusion on Thursday.
Hyden, whose group aims to frame opposition to the death penalty in a conservative light, has a point.
LoGuirato said,
“What we’re seeing is a lot of states experimenting with brand new experimental drug combinations that are untested,” Hyden said.
That experimentation has been supplanted with alternate roads — some of which border on the extreme. Last year, Tennessee became the first state to mandate use of the electric chair in executions if lethal drugs are unavailable. Then came Utah and the firing squad.
Roberto Ontiveros from the Latin Post published reported on an unprecedented development in the evangelical world,
The National Latino Evangelical Coalition (NaLEC), in a unanimous vote, has come together to urge their 3,000 member congregations to help put an end to capital punishment across the country.
Ontiveros continued,
This recent vote makes NaLEC the first national association of evangelical churches to take a public stand against capital punishment.
As reported in Religion News Service, Salguero explained the decision came after a discernment process which begain in 2013 and included prayer as well as dialogue with anti-death penalty groups such as Equal Justice USA (EJUSA).
Speaking about NaLEC’s new commitment to helping end state-sponsored executions, Shari Silberstein, executive director of EJUSA, said that her organization has “found that evangelicals are eager to take another look at this issue, reflecting what we’re seeing in the country as a whole.”
Two days ago, I was a guest on the Stacy Petty Radio Show. We discussed many aspects of capital punishment, including the Christian and conservative case against the death penalty and the evidence casting doubt on Cameron Todd Willingham‘s verdict who was executed. You can listen to the entire segment here.
First printed by Voices of Liberty on March 19, 2015
March 19, 2015—On Tuesday March 17th inside the rotunda at the Kansas State Capitol, there was a typical scene for what is widely considered to be one of the most conservative states in America. A Republican legislator, a former Republican lawmaker, a district-level GOP official, and a pro-life activist all gathered together to hold a news conference.
However, their message caught some by surprise: the time has come to end Kansas’ failed experiment with the death penalty. Their call to end capital punishment stemmed from core conservative principles, such as a commitment to fiscal responsibility, limited government, and valuing life.
State Representative Bill Sutton, a Republican from the town of Gardner, led these conservative leaders in calling for support of a bill that would replace the death penalty in Kansas with life in prison without the possibility of parole. “There are millions of dollars spent on trials and appeals and we have nothing to show for it,” said Sutton.
Several states are moving even closer to repealing the death penalty. In a bipartisan effort and with the support of murder victims’ family members, the Nebraska Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill to end capital punishment. It now heads to the floor of the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature for consideration.
Kansas is also inching towards repealing capital punishment, with many conservative legislators supporting the measure. On March 17,conservatives and religious leaders came together for a press conference encouraging the legislature and governor to support replacing the death penalty with life without parole. You can watch the video here.
Conservative heavyweight and National Review editor, Ramesh Ponnuru, even urged the governors of both Kansas and Nebraska to back the repeal.
Other national conservative leaders are also expressing their concerns with capital punishment. Recently, Bruce Fein said, “The death penalty is too perilous to risk to human error.” Fein is former Associate Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan.
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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