Alabama Governor Calls Life ​“Precious” and ​“Sacred,” Then Denies Clemency to Michael Samra

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has drawn crit­i­cism for deny­ing clemen­cy and pre­sid­ing over the exe­cu­tion of Michael Samra (pic­tured) on May 16, 2019, one day after issu­ing a state­ment call­ing Alabama a pro-life state and declar­ing life ​“pre­cious” and ​“sacred.” On May 15, Ivey signed into law a bill that crim­i­nal­izes abor­tion, say­ing that the new law ​“stands as a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is pre­cious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.” After Samra’s exe­cu­tion the fol­low­ing evening, her office issued a state­ment that ​“Alabama will not stand for the loss of life in our state, and with this heinous crime, we must respond with pun­ish­ment. … This evening jus­tice has been deliv­ered to the loved ones of these vic­tims, and it sig­nals that Alabama does not tol­er­ate mur­der­ous acts of any nature.”

Ivey’s actions prompt­ed rebukes from lib­er­al and con­ser­v­a­tive quar­ters and renewed the ques­tion of whether one who sup­ports cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can be con­sid­ered ​“pro-life.” ​“It’s a con­tra­dic­tion that I always observed,” said Hannah Cox, the nation­al man­ag­er of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. Supporting the death penal­ty, Ms. Cox told The New York Times, is ​“a stance that cheap­ens the pro-life argu­ment.” Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, an anti-death penal­ty advo­ca­cy group, said “[p]ro-life val­ues are mean­ing­less when they are incon­sis­tent.” She said that “[t]he sanc­ti­ty of human life applies to each and every per­son, inno­cent and guilty,” and that a person’s dig­ni­ty ​“is not lost even after the com­mis­sion of very serious crimes.”

Ivey’s actions also were crit­i­cized in arti­cles in The Los Angeles Times and CNN. Los Angeles Times opin­ion writer Scott Martelle high­light­ed some of the sev­en exe­cu­tions Ivey has over­seen, includ­ing Walter Moody, the old­est per­son exe­cut­ed in the U.S., and Domineque Ray, a Muslim pris­on­er who was denied the pres­ence of his imam dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. ​“Apparently, Ivey’s not averse to return­ing some of God’s sacred gifts,” Martelle wrote. ​“If Ivey had the courage of her con­vic­tions, she would use her author­i­ty as gov­er­nor to grant clemen­cy to [the] 181 peo­ple fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Alabama. That act would … remove the cloud of hypocrisy hov­er­ing over Montgomery.” In a CNN com­men­tary, Jay Parisi wrote: ​“The anti-abor­tion move­ment rais­es a ques­tion about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that must be answered. If the 25 white men who vot­ed in the Alabama sen­ate for a near-total ban on abor­tion were real­ly seri­ous about the ​‘right to life,’ would they not have simul­ta­ne­ous­ly banned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment? The death penal­ty is a clear vio­la­tion of this right ….” Parisi called it ​“deeply iron­ic that the sev­en states that have passed tighter abor­tion laws are also active­ly open to killing live human beings by lethal injec­tion or electrocution.”

The week before Samra’s exe­cu­tion, Cox authored a com­men­tary for Newsmax in which she cri­tiqued the ​“incon­sis­ten­cy” and ​“hypocrisy” of argu­ments by peo­ple who iden­ti­fy them­selves as pro-life, yet sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. “[A]s a Christian,” she wrote, ​“I believe that all life has inher­ent val­ue that can­not be won or lost by any­thing we do, but rather that is based on all being cre­at­ed in the image of God.” She addressed the oft-repeat­ed rea­son­ing that only inno­cent life deserves to be pro­tect­ed, explain­ing, ​“there are count­less inno­cent peo­ple caught up in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and cer­tain­ly on death rows. To date, one per­son has been exon­er­at­ed from death row for every ten exe­cu­tions. You can­not but­tress your belief in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with the rea­son­ing that you only think inno­cent life should be pro­tect­ed.” Cox said, ​“The vast major­i­ty of peo­ple who com­mit harm were first vic­tim­ized numer­ous times — often as chil­dren — before they became vio­lent. … You can­not say you care about the lives of young chil­dren and want to pro­tect them from harm, and then believe they should be exe­cut­ed when they are harmed and end up per­pet­u­at­ing the cycle of violence.”

Cox told The New York Times that the pro-life dia­logue about the death penal­ty con­tin­ues to shift, notwith­stand­ing the events in Alabama. Growing con­ser­v­a­tive oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, she said, is evi­denced by the intro­duc­tion of Republican-spon­sored bills to repeal the death penal­ty in 11 state leg­is­la­tures in 2019.

(Hannah Cox, Pro-Life Views Fall Flat When They Aren’t Consistent, Newsmax, May 10, 2019; Adeel Hassan and Alan Blinder, Alabama Executes a Murderer a Day After Banning Abortions, The New York Times, May 16, 2019; Scott Martelle, Alabama’s antiabor­tion gov­er­nor urges respect for life, will over­see a 7^th exe­cu­tion, The Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2019; Jay Parini, Alabama’s ​‘pro-life’ gov­er­nor is a hyp­ocrite, CNN, May 17, 2019.) See Executions and New Voices.