The death penalty’s concerning flaws don’t go away for a higher profile crime like terrorism. In fact, incidents like terrorism can raise even more concerns. For example, an executed terrorist might take valuable intelligence information to his or her grave. Executions are final, forever cutting off further avenues for questioning that might have helped stop future terrorist acts. Furthermore, many people who commit acts of terrorism want to become martyrs. Executing them could give them what they want, emboldening their compatriots or even potentially recruiting others to their cause. For many conservatives, these considerations raise added questions about the death penalty’s efficacy in terrorism cases, questions that compound our existing concerns about the death penalty overall.
Former Montana State House Majority Leader Roy Brown details in the Daily Caller why conservatives everywhere should be concerned about the death penalty. Mr. Brown, a founding member of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said,
There is no deeper violation of a citizen’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than their own government killing them when they’re actually innocent.
Brown went on to say
The death penalty’s waste and inefficiency is rivaled by few other government programs. That we continue to fund the death penalty should be offensive to anyone who believes in fiscal responsibility.
Roy Brown is one of a growing number of conservatives that have found that the death penalty doesn’t align with conservative values and principles.
The Examiner recently reported David Bryant was freed on April 13, 2013 after DNA evidence showed he was wrongfully convicted of beating, raping, and murdering an 8 year-old girl. Bryant’s case is just one more example that the judicial system is mistake-prone.
“I know I can’t get these 38 years back. But hopefully that time is worth something, and I can use that something to give back,” he added.
According to the New York Post, he tearfully said outside court: “I just wanna go to church and get on my knees and pray for my mother and father because they never believed me. I wish they were alive today so that I could tell them that I didn’t do it.”
His story is similar to hundreds of others who have been wrongfully convicted and released. How many are even less lucky? Many others remain in prison or, even worse, have been executed even though evidence has come to light casting serious doubt about their guilt.
Our national debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March was a huge success. Thank you to all who were part of it.
Our CPAC booth was the busiest in our row. Hundreds of supporters visited us and expressed their support. Many asked, “Where have you been for so long? I thought I was the only conservative that supports repealing the death penalty.”
Jay Sekulow, one of our national supporters, said the same thing in the U.S. News and World Report story that covered our launch.
One visitor dropped the bags and materials he was carrying as soon as he saw us, expressing his emotion and gratitude for our presence.
The warm welcome we got at CPAC confirmed what we already knew: uniform conservative support for the death penalty is a myth.
That’s why we formed Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty: to shatter that myth and talk about the death penalty from a conservative perspective. A number of proponents of the death penalty who visited our booth walked away our newest allies.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a composite of many religions’ and denominations’ official positions on the death penalty. It shouldn’t be a surprise that most support repealing the death penalty.
We’re still abuzz from our exciting launch last month at the CPAC 2013 conference.
Grassroots leaders from Kentucky, Kansas, Texas, and Montana joined our national coordinators at the conference. Our booth was swamped with supporters. Over and over, we heard: “Where have you been for so long? I thought I was the only conservative who supported repealing the death penalty.”
Our supporter list grew more than tenfold over those two days, and we talked to so many others who wanted to follow up.
The reaction of CPAC attendees – those young and old, from north and south, men and women – confirmed what we already knew: conservatives do not universally support the death penalty. Far from it! Our ranks of conservatives who are openly questioning capital punishment is increasing.
But don’t take it from us!
U.S. News and World Report covered our launch, saying that the stereotype of conservative support for the death penalty “no longer holds true.” The piece continues:
Several bigger names have also jumped aboard the CCADP team, including Jay Sekulow, a top litigator of free speech and religious liberty cases.
Drew Johnson of the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports on Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty and the death penalty’s many flaws. He said,
In 2011, public support for the death penalty fell to its lowest level in nearly four decades. That’s because the death penalty drains resources, fails to serve victims’ families and loved ones, is applied more often to poor and minority offenders, does nothing to keep communities safe and can result in the execution of innocent people, according to Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.
The group is right on every level.
Drew Johnson concludes that the death penalty is not successful in any function, and we, as conservatives, should consider repealing it.
I have a blog post in the Bell Towers today about why conservatives are realizing the death penalty is a failed policy. The post states,
Conservatives across the board have come to the conclusion that the death penalty is a broken system for many different reasons.
It goes on to say:
Regardless of good intentions, the judicial system cannot be right 100% of the time, and conservatives are wary of any government program – most especially one designed to kill U.S. citizens. Many have said a government so powerful it can put its citizens to death, is, indeed, too powerful.
For fiscal conservatives, the cost of the death penalty is indefensible. Several studies have shown that death penalty cases are up to 20 times more expensive than comparable cases with the sentence of life without the possibility of release. It is far less expensive to incarcerate an inmate for life than to go through the death penalty process. This is widely accepted. Capital punishment is a bloated and inefficient program that siphons funds away from public safety programs and the taxpayers.
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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