Christianity Today reported on the stay of execution that was granted in Scott Panetti’s case. The stay comes after an outcry from conservative and Evangelical political and thought leaders. The article quoted CCATDP’s Heather Beaudoin,
“This is the largest outpouring of support on a death penalty case we’ve seen from evangelicals, and you can see why, given the ridiculous nature of this case,” Heather Beaudoin, a spokesperson for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, told Mother Jones. “A lot of folks who signed this [clemency] letter might have given pause about signing on to a letter opposing the death penalty generally, but they think we have no business executing Scott Panetti.”
The author continued,
Scott Panetti’s execution was scheduled for today. This morning, an appeals court delayed his death with just hours to spare.
Shane Claiborne, Lynne Hybels, Joel Hunter, Sam Rodriguez, Jay Sekulow, and other conservatives and progressives signed the letter, which states that Christians are called to protect the most vulnerable and that Panetti, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia since the 1970s and murdered his in-laws to “get rid of the devil” inside them, falls into that category.
Heather Beaudoin was featured on Huffington Post Live to discuss the upcoming execution of Scott Panetti and the conservative and evangelical demands to grant Panetti clemency. You can watch the interview here.
I was interviewed by MSNBC’s Michele Richinick about the conservative outcry over Texas’ plans to execute Scott Panetti, the mentally ill death row inmate. She quoted me as saying,
“There is an unprecedented conservative response to this case,” Marc Hyden, advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, told msnbc. “This is another example of an utterly broken system. This person shouldn’t have been allowed to represent himself.”
“It is clear,” the conservatives continued, “that he has been suffering from severe mental illness since long before he committed the offense that landed him on death row.” But prosecutors argue that Panetti fakes his illness.
The Independent reported on Scott Panetti’s case. He is set to be executed on Wednesday, December 3, 2014 even though he has long suffered from mental illness. Tim Walker, the article’s author, said,
Long before it became clear from his courtroom antics, Mr Panetti had been diagnosed as severely mentally ill, which is why his impending lethal injection – due to be carried out on Wednesday – is opposed by not only his lawyers and a familiar collection of human rights groups, but also by an alliance of conservatives.
Among those protesting against Mr Panetti’s death sentence are more than 50 leading evangelical Christians, seven Methodist bishops, 10 Texas state politicians and the libertarian former presidential candidate Ron Paul. Mr Paul, a former Republican congressman who once backed the death penalty, wrote last month to Rick Perry, the Texas Governor, to appeal for clemency in the Panetti case. It is thought to be the first time he has publicly opposed an execution.
Walker additionally said,
The unlikely coalition of conservatives against the death penalty has found in Mr Panetti’s case a cause célèbre.
Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty’s Ben Jones recently authored an article published by Young Americans for Liberty. He describes Texas’ attempt to execute an inmate suffering from severe mental illness. Jones said,
Texas has scheduled an execution date of December 3 for Scott Panetti, who was convicted of murdering his wife’s parents in 1992. Panetti suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. Prior to the murders of which he was convicted, Panetti was hospitalized over a dozen times for mental illness.
He closed by saying,
Dr. Ron Paul and others are calling on Texas to stop this execution. Regarding the case, Dr. Paul writes, “The circumstances of this case present a situation where execution does not serve the state of Texas.”
I encourage you to visit http://texasdefender.org/scott-panetti/ to learn more about the case and to sign this petition to stop Panetti’s execution.
Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer wrote an article on the ongoing Scott Panetti case and the conservative involvement to ask Governor Perry to grant Panetti clemency. Mecimer stated,
Trial transcripts, medical records, and expert witness testimony have documented that Panetti suffers from severe schizophrenia. He believes Texas is going to execute him to stop him from preaching the gospel—not because he shaved his head, donned camo fatigues, and shot and killed his in-laws in 1992.
Mencimer highlighted the many notable conservatives increasingly asking the state of Texas to not execute a mentally ill man. She said,
In addition to Paul, this group includes Jay Sekulow, an evangelical lawyer famous for pressing religious liberties cases on behalf of social conservatives.
Paul’s involvement in the case is unusual. Last year, he publicly endorsed a new advocacy group, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, saying, “I believe that support for the death penalty is inconsistent with libertarianism and traditional conservatism.” This was the result of a years-long evolution. In 2007, Paul noted, “There was a time I simply stated that I supported the death penalty.
Danny Huizinga, writer for Consider Again, penned an article describing the changes in the national death penalty discussion. Huizinga said,
Last week, former congressman Ron Paul wrote a letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry urging clemency for Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man who killed his wife’s parents in 1992. Paul, a vocal libertarian who campaigned in the 2012 Republican primary, said he used to support the death penalty but no longer does.
He went on to say,
A 2014 Gallup poll shows that support for the death penalty among Republicans is 76 percent, 5 percentage points lower than last year. This is the second-lowest point for death penalty support among Republicans since 1988 (the lowest point was 73 percent in 2011).
Huizinga quoted me in his article,
“I have traveled across the country talking to thousands of conservatives over the last year,” said Marc Hyden, National Coordinator of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. “Many of them have changed their views and many more are voicing strong concerns, and the conservative media is now routinely covering the conservative case against the death penalty.”
The annual Gallup poll on the death penalty was released in late October. The results of the poll found that support for capital punishment across the United States is near a 40-year low, and Gallup also found that Republican support for the death penalty has fallen by 5% in just one year. This is a substantial shift in such a short period of time, and it likely stems from the fact that many Republicans now see capital punishment for what it is, a dangerous and expensive government program.
Conservatives Concerned in the Media
CCATDP has, once again, been featured in numerous publications.
• Following Gallup’s findings, Townhall and Libertybriefing reported on the shift in Republican support and highlighted the work that we have been doing.
• I was a guest on Daybreak with Drew Steele (a Fox radio station), Talking out Loud with L.A. Cooper, and the Andy Caldwell Show.
• I was also interviewed by NBC’s Channel 10 and the UT Daily Beacon following an event in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Following the successful event at the University of Tennessee, To Honor Life, Hannah Marley covered it in the UT Daily Beacon. She said,
On Monday night in the University Center, the libertarian organization Young Americans for Liberty at UT hosted “To Honor Life: An Evening on the Death Penalty,” an event focused on exposing the deep-seated problems that lie at the heart of capital punishment in the United States.
The event featured a talk by Ray Krone, the 100th death row inmate exonerated in the U.S., on his 10-year struggle in the courts to prove his innocence, as well as a discussion panel with Stacy Rector from Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death penalty and Marc Hyden with Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.
She went on to say,
Hyden said that capital punishment is contradictory to many tightly-held conservative views, including the importance of pro-life legislation and limited government.
“It’s not pro-life when it risks killing innocent lives, it’s not fiscally responsible because it costs millions more dollars to try to execute someone than to keep them in jail for the rest of their lives,” Hyden said.
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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