One year after a state task force issued a report call­ing Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty seri­ous­ly flawed and in need of major reform, bipar­ti­san oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is sur­fac­ing in the Commonwealth’s leg­is­la­ture. A group of leg­is­la­tors, led by Lebanon County Republican State Rep. Frank Ryan (pic­tured, left) and Philadelphia Democrat Chris Rabb (pic­tured, right), have pre­pared leg­is­la­tion to repeal Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty and are cir­cu­lat­ing the pro­pos­al for co-spon­sor­ship. ​“The odd cou­ple pair­ing” of leg­is­la­tors Rabb and Ryan — whom vet­er­an Harrisburg reporter John Micek describes as ​“one of the most pro­gres­sive Democrats in the state House [and] one of its most con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers” — ​“is becom­ing more com­mon­place as Republican law­mak­ers across the coun­try not only reeval­u­ate their sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but also step up to spon­sor bills call­ing for its elim­i­na­tion,” Micek wrote in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Ryan’s rea­sons for oppos­ing the death penal­ty — both moral and prag­mat­ic — are typ­i­cal of the grow­ing num­ber of Republic leg­is­la­tors who are spon­sor­ing abo­li­tion bills. Considered a ​“tax and spend­ing hawk,” Ryan says, ​“I empathize with vic­tims. But from a pub­lic pol­i­cy stand­point, it’s bet­ter to do life in prison with­out parole than for the state to start pick­ing who is going to die. And from a pub­lic pol­i­cy per­spec­tive, I’ve found that the jus­tice sys­tem is not as respon­sive to those with less eco­nom­ic clout.” Ryan also oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on moral grounds, cit­ing his pro-life beliefs. Rabb also cites a range of prag­mat­ic con­cerns as grounds for abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“There’s no study that shows that a death penal­ty is a deter­rent,” he said. ​“There’s no study that shows the death penal­ty is with­out flaw.” A Reading Eagle study esti­mat­ed that the cost of Pennsylvania’s death-penal­ty since the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law was enact­ed in 1978 was $816 mil­lion high­er than the cost of life with­out parole. ​“What could we bet­ter use $100, $200, $250 mil­lion for?” Rabb said. ​“A lot of stuff.” State Sen. Sharif Street, a Democrat from Philadelphia who will be spon­sor­ing the abo­li­tion bill in the Senate, said “[t]he over­whelm­ing cost, dis­parate appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, com­pound­ed by human error and its his­tor­i­cal­ly arbi­trary and racist imple­men­ta­tion in our coun­try, make it unfit for any use in an effi­cient and tru­ly just system.”

Ryan and Rabb both believe the bill will attract bipar­ti­san spon­sor­ship. Ryan, a dec­o­rat­ed Marine vet­er­an of the war in Iraq, says ​“I’ve got­ten no blow­back from any of my Republican col­leagues. I had one say, ​‘Oh my god Frank, you’re soft on crime,’ and then he said, ​‘By the way, good bill. I’ll co-spon­sor it.’” Other Republican leg­is­la­tors have expressed uncer­tain­ty about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Sen. Pat Stefano, a Republican from Fayette County in the south­west cor­ner of the state said ​“I am not much in favor of it because it does not deter any crim­i­nals. We have to ana­lyze every dol­lar we spend, and here we’re spend­ing mil­lions and mil­lions of dol­lars with no effect.” Nonetheless, he said, ​“I’d pre­fer that we keep it on the books so pros­e­cu­tors can use it as a bargaining tool.”

More than half of the 408 peo­ple sen­tenced to death since Pennsylvania rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty have had their sen­tences reversed on appeal, with most resen­tenced to life in prison or a term of years. Six peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed – twice as many as have been exe­cut­ed – and oth­er like­ly inno­cent death-row pris­on­ers whose con­vic­tions were over­turned in the courts have been released after plead­ing no con­test to crimes they say they did not com­mit. The rate at which Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tors have sought the death penal­ty has fall­en by more than 70% since 2004 and juries imposed one new death sen­tence in 2018, a record-low.

Pennsylvania is the only remain­ing Northeastern state to autho­rize the use of the death penal­ty, and Governor Tom Wolf has imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. All three states along the Commonwealth’s south­ern bor­der – Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia – also have abol­ished capital punishment.

(Deb Erdley, Death penal­ty repeal move­ment sur­faces in Pa. Legislature, Tribune-Review, May 31, 2019; John L. Micek, Study: Republicans are aban­don­ing the death penal­ty in record num­bers, Pennsylvania Capital-Star, May 3, 2019; Katie Meyer, PA’s death penal­ty oppo­si­tion gets a bipar­ti­san push, WITF, April 30, 2019.) See Recent Legislative Activity.

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