Jennifer Stefano, former director of Americans for Prosperity Pennsylvania, makes the case against capital punishment in our new guest column on Substack. All eyes are on the Keystone State as House Bill 888, authored by Republican State Rep. Russ Diamond, makes its way through the legislature. The bill would end the death penalty in PA.
Her column comes as more and more conservatives in the Keystone State question the alignment of capital punishment with conservative values. House Bill 888, authored by Republican State Rep. Russ Diamond, would end the death penalty in Pennsylvania.
Justice is one of the first responsibilities of a civilized society. It must protect the innocent, hold the guilty fully accountable, and honor the suffering of victims without compromising the principles that define a free and moral people.
Some crimes are so horrific that they demand the most severe punishment our laws can impose. Acknowledging that reality is not difficult. Neither is recognizing the profound grief carried by victims and their families, who deserve truth, protection, and a justice system worthy of their trust.
But justice does not require execution.
A society can permanently remove dangerous offenders from the public through life imprisonment while refusing to grant the government the irreversible power to deliberately end a human life. That distinction matters because governments are not infallible. Courts make mistakes. Prosecutors make mistakes. Evidence is mishandled. Witnesses are mistaken. Innocent people have been convicted of crimes they did not commit.
An execution cannot be reversed. A wrongful conviction can be corrected. A wrongful execution cannot.
There is another principle at stake as well. Every human being possesses inherent dignity, even after committing acts of profound evil. A criminal may rightly lose his freedom. He may deserve the harshest punishment the law allows. But he does not cease to be a human being—even if he has acted with profound inhumanity and inflicted unimaginable suffering on others.
The horror of his crime does not erase the humanity of his victims, nor does it erase his own.
Some crimes are so monstrous that they forever alter the lives of victims, fracture families, and leave communities with wounds that cannot be repaired. Recognizing the enduring dignity of the offender is not an act of sympathy toward evil; it is a refusal to allow evil to dictate our understanding of human worth.
Government should exercise tremendous humility whenever it claims the authority to decide that a life is beyond redemption. The power to punish is essential to ordered liberty. The power to execute is something altogether different.
The measure of a just society is not found in how efficiently it can kill those who have done wrong. It is found in whether it can uphold justice while preserving its commitment to the dignity of every human life.
Standing against the death penalty does not mean standing against victims. Quite the opposite. Victims deserve unwavering support, protection, and a legal system committed to holding offenders accountable. Justice demands that we stand firmly with the innocent while ensuring that punishment is certain, severe, and proportionate.
Life imprisonment accomplishes those goals without giving the state a power that is permanent, fallible, and ultimately unnecessary.
A government strong enough to protect society without taking life demonstrates greater confidence in justice than one that relies on execution.
For those reasons, the death penalty should be abolished.
