Facts & Research
Individuals from across the political spectrum have voiced growing concerns about the death penalty, questioning not only the morality of capital punishment but whether the government can be trusted to fairly and accurately apply it. Many of these new voices bring new and non-traditional perspectives to the death-penalty debate.
In the 1990s, the Gallup Poll measured support for the death penalty in the United States at 80%. Since then it has fallen into the mid 50%s. The death penalty has long been opposed by human rights and civil rights activists, who question whether capital punishment can be applied fairly and whether the risks of executing innocent people are too great, and by those who consider it morally wrong for the government to take the life of a prisoner who has already been incapacitated by incarceration. But a growing number of non-traditional voices have raised new concerns about the death penalty, questioning its cost, its ineffectiveness in protecting the public and police, the disservice it does to family members of murder victims, its inconsistency with a pro-life ethic and the values of limited government, and whether the money spent on the death penalty could be used more effectively. These new voices represent a variety of perspectives, from judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement veterans to legislators, academics, spiritual leaders, and murder victims’ families.
For more information about new voices in the death penalty discussion, see news features about:
Mar 19, 2021
The movement to repeal capital punishment in Ohio has gained additional steam as former Governor Robert Taft and former state attorneys general Jim Petro and Lee Fisher
Read MoreRecent Legislative Activity
Jun 02, 2023
Florida’s recent decision to allow death sentences without a unanimous jury recommendation increases the risk of executing an innocent person, according to conservative commentator Christian Schneider (pictured). In a May 25, 2023 column for Th…
Victims' Families
May 30, 2023
On May 25, 2023, 12 death-qualified jurors and six alternates were selected in the federal capital trial of Robert Bowers, who is charged with killing 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. Prosecutors struck all the Black, Hispanic, an…
Innocence
May 26, 2023
“[W]e have come over time to see the flaws in our nation’s justice system and to view the state’s death penalty laws in particular as legally and morally troubling,” wrote two former governors of Alabama in an op-ed for the W…
International
May 23, 2023
A May 20, 2023 editorial in a leading medical academic journal concludes that physician participation in executions “goes against the ethical foundation of the physician’s role” and argues that doctors and medical associations should oppose capita…
New Voices
Apr 26, 2023
The board of Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer published an editorial supporting the passage of Senate Bill 101 that would abolish the death penalty in Ohio. “[T]he time is right,” states the piece, “for the General Assembly to …
Religion
Apr 12, 2023
On April 9, 2023, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to withdraw the government’s pursuit of the death penalty and accept a plea deal for a mandatory life sentence in the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsb…
Mental Illness
Apr 03, 2023
Dr. Joseph Thornton, a psychiatrist who formerly treated death row prisoners as the medical director of a Florida maximum security prison, called for an end to the death penalty for those with severe mental illness: “We should not be executing any…
New Voices
Mar 29, 2023
After years of silence regarding his views on the death penalty, Governor John Bel Edwards of Louisiana expressed his opposition to capital punishment in a seminar at Loyola University in New Orleans. On March 22, 2023, Edwards said, “The death pe…
Mental Illness
Mar 17, 2023
In an op-ed for the National Review, psychiatrist Sally Satel writes, “No civilized or lawful purpose is served by executing the severely mentally ill.” Satel is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and she highlights the deficits…
Religion
Mar 08, 2023
In Crossing the River Styx: The Memoir of a Death Row Chaplain, (March 2023), author Russ Ford recounts the abuses he witnessed as the head chaplain of Virginia’s death row and the strong relationships he formed with more than a d…
