A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Dallas Morning News high­light­ed the voic­es of promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tives who now oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includ­ing for­mer Texas Congressman Ron Paul and con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal leader Richard Viguerie. The paper not­ed the new part­ner­ship between the stu­dent-cen­tered orga­ni­za­tion Young Americans for Liberty and Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. The edi­to­r­i­al described why one Texas con­ser­v­a­tive, Pat Monks, a Republican precinct chair­man in Harris County (Houston), changed his mind on the death penal­ty: ​“Ultimately .… [t]he impos­si­bil­i­ty of erad­i­cat­ing human error from the sys­tem hit home to him.… he came to see no deter­rent val­ue for a pun­ish­ment that’s imposed uneven­ly at an intol­er­a­ble expense to the pub­lic.” Read the full editorial below.

Editorial: Conservatives vs. the death penalty

Published: 29 November 2013 05:05 PM Updated: 30 November 2013 12:08 PM

Opposition to the death penal­ty is not just the province of the political left.

This year has seen the emer­gence of a new nation­al group, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, which has been assem­bling a net­work of like-mind­ed activists since its debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March in National Harbor, Md. This month, the con­ser­v­a­tive group announced a part­ner­ship with a Ron Paul-inspired, cam­pus-cen­tered orga­ni­za­tion, the Young Americans for Liberty.

The dri­ving prin­ci­ples are cap­i­tal punishment’s incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the con­ser­v­a­tive ideals of restrain­ing gov­ern­ment, pro­tect­ing life and main­tain­ing fiscal responsibility.

The polit­i­cal right has teamed up with the left to push ​“smart on crime” reforms in sen­tenc­ing and incar­cer­a­tion, among oth­er issues. From the stand­point of this news­pa­per and our oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, that same polit­i­cal axis could be key to mak­ing fur­ther inroads as more states con­sid­er join­ing the 18 that have already abol­ished the practice.

Texas, it is clear, is a strong­hold of death-penal­ty sup­port. A University of Texas-Texas Tribune poll this fall showed 74 per­cent of Texans in favor — about 14 points above nation­al sup­port expressed to a sim­i­lar death-penal­ty ques­tion in a Gallup Poll last month.

The Texas poll showed that about 13 per­cent of the reg­is­tered vot­ers who opposed the death penal­ty iden­ti­fied them­selves as conservatives.

One such Texan is crim­i­nal defense attor­ney Pat Monks of Houston, a Republican precinct chair­man in Harris County. Monks said he once was a fer­vent sup­port­er of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, a posi­tion that hard­ened after a friend was mur­dered. He said he would attend social jus­tice sem­i­nars to press his point, once even heck­ling not­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment oppo­nent Sister Helen Prejean, who came to speak.

Ultimately, Monks said, the futil­i­ty of seek­ing jus­tice through the death cham­ber hit home to him. The impos­si­bil­i­ty of erad­i­cat­ing human error from the sys­tem hit home to him.

Monks said he came to see no deter­rent val­ue for a pun­ish­ment that’s imposed uneven­ly at an intol­er­a­ble expense to the pub­lic. Monks asserts that a more suit­able pun­ish­ment is send­ing a killer to a ​“4‑by‑8 cell, 23 hours a day for the rest of his life.”

Monks joined the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty; he says he’s one of three con­ser­v­a­tive board mem­bers. This year, he was asked to help staff the booth that the Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty set up at the Maryland CPAC convention.

It was a sur­prise, Monks said, to see how many con­ser­v­a­tive activists at the con­ven­tion stopped by to dis­cuss the death penal­ty. ​“People would come up and say, ​‘Man, I’m with you on that.’”

That’s not where most Texans are, not by a long shot. Most hold the same pro-death-penal­ty posi­tion Monks once held. We hope more will do the inquiry he did and have that same transformation.

Supporters of new conservative group

“I believe that sup­port for the death penal­ty is incon­sis­tent with lib­er­tar­i­an­ism and tra­di­tion­al con­ser­vatism. So I am pleased with Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty’s efforts to form a coali­tion of lib­er­tar­i­ans and con­ser­v­a­tives to work to end capital punishment.”

Ron Paul , for­mer Texas mem­ber of Congress and Republican presidential candidate

“I’m opposed to the death penal­ty not because I think it’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al per se — although I think it’s been applied in ways that are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al — but it real­ly is a moral view, and that is that the tak­ing of life is not the way to han­dle even the most sig­nif­i­cant of crimes. Who amongst any­one is not above redemption?”

Jay Sekulow , chief coun­sel for the reli­gious-lib­er­ty advo­cates American Center for Law and Justice

“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.”

Richard Viguerie, direct-mail mogul and major fun­der of conservative causes

SOURCES: Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty; Religion News Service; Sojourners

(“Editorial: Conservatives vs. the death penal­ty,” Dallas Morning News, November 29, 2013). See Editorials and New Voices.