Vo⁠i⁠ces

“While wrongful convictions occur all too often in our criminal justice system, they can sometimes be righted through appeals or new evidence. But when a wrongful capital punishment is carried out, it cannot be corrected. Modern DNA forensic science has demonstrated that hundreds of innocent people have been executed. Human life is sacred to us and we can no longer support the use of capital punishment.”

I first supported the death penalty until I found out how many innocent individuals were being killed and how costly it was on the taxpayers. In a free and just society, we should always strive to protect life, most especially all innocent life. And, ultimately, it costs the taxpayers more to put a man to death than keeping him locked up for life. So after studying the issue, I now strongly oppose the death penalty.

Are some crimes so heinous as to be worthy of the ultimate earthly punishment? Yes. Are some who commit those crimes capable of remorse, redemption and restitution? Yes, but not if they’re dead. Is government guilty of sloppiness and error in its judgments? Oh my God, yes! Add to that the proven fact that capital punishment in our clunky court system costs more than life without parole and you arrive at an inescapable conclusion: the right alternatives to capital punishment offer more hope, more deterrence and more justice.

Government has no business in the taking of life that is not strictly related to national defense. The same people who don’t believe that government can efficiently deliver health services or regulate the economy believe it can execute people without a mistake. Government should have no authority to make decisions where a mistake could mean the taking of an innocent life. I would rather see 100 guilty men go free, than to see one innocent person executed.

On the core issue — yes or no on capital punishment — I’m with the opponents. Better to err on the side of not taking life. The teaching of the Catholic Church, to which I belong, seems right to me: The state has the legitimate authority to execute criminals, but it should refrain if it has other means of protecting people from them. Our government almost always does.

Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation, which we conservatives know are rife with injustice. But here the end result is the end of someone’s life. In other words, it’s a government system that kills people.

The death penalty runs a dangerously high risk of killing innocent people, siphons billions of dollars from the public, and gives the government power it cannot be trusted to carry out fairly.

The government’s culture of death–including capital punishment–must be opposed by everyone who loves freedom and life.

The death penalty is too perilous to risk to human error.