Religion

In the September 2023 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, speaks with Pastor Rich Nathan (pic­tured), found­ing pas­tor of Vineyard Columbus, an evan­gel­i­cal Christian church based in Ohio. Mr. Nathan shares how reli­gious teach­ings inform his posi­tion on the death penal­ty. ​“For me, the oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has just been a nat­ur­al exten­sion of our pro-life posi­tion of build­ing an inclu­sive soci­ety, a soci­ety that wel­comes every­one into the human fam­i­ly and says. ​‘Listen, your worth is not depen­dent on whether some­body wants you or…

On September 26, 2023, the New York Metropolitan Opera will pre­miere ​“Dead Man Walking” cre­at­ed by American com­pos­er Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally and fea­tur­ing a new stag­ing by Ivo van Hove. The opera is based on Sister Helen Prejean’s 1993 mem­oir which details her jour­ney as a pen pal and spir­i­tu­al advis­er to a death-sen­tenced pris­on­er at Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. It is the most per­formed con­tem­po­rary opera in the world. ​“I can only think that some­how we told this human dra­ma very well,” Mr. Heggie said. ​“It is an…

Reverend Melissa Potts-Bowers, the spir­i­tu­al advi­sor to Michael Tisius, recent­ly described her expe­ri­ence min­is­ter­ing to him dur­ing his exe­cu­tion as ​“quite hor­ri­fy­ing — as it’s intend­ed to be.” Mr. Tisius was exe­cut­ed by the state of Missouri on June 6, 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, and Jewish venire mem­bers. As tes­ti­mo­ny begins on May 30, some vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers have expressed sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, while oth­ers have objected.

In He Called Me Sister: A True Story of Finding Humanity on Death Row, author Suzanne Craig Robertson details her jour­ney from reluc­tance to true friend­ship dur­ing her chal­leng­ing fif­teen-year rela­tion­ship with Cecil Johnson, a Tennessee death-row pris­on­er, who was exe­cut­ed in December 2009. Using let­ters, poems, and a per­son­al mem­oir writ­ten by Johnson, Robertson tells their mutu­al sto­ry of per­se­ver­ance, recall­ing that ​“dif­fer­ences don’t have to be barriers.”

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 Pittsburgh in 2018. The edi­tors not­ed that seek­ing a death sen­tence: ​“would, in effect, re-enact the worst case of anti-Semitic vio­lence in U.S. his­to­ry through wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, media cov­er­age and appeals that could con­tin­ue for up to 20 years.” The tri­al is sched­uled to begin soon with jury selec­tion on…

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 dozen con­demned pris­on­ers. Through sto­ries, he describes the core of human dig­ni­ty he expe­ri­enced among death row pris­on­ers, as well as the treach­er­ous con­di­tions these indi­vid­u­als faced dur­ing their final days.

In a let­ter to Governor Kay Ivey (pic­tured) of Alabama, over 170 local faith lead­ers from many denom­i­na­tions and tra­di­tions across the state asked her to com­mit to a ​“com­pre­hen­sive, inde­pen­dent, and exter­nal review of Alabama’s death penal­ty pro­ce­dures” in the wake of a series of botched exe­cu­tions. The church rep­re­sen­ta­tives thanked the gov­er­nor for paus­ing exe­cu­tions but urged her to ensure trans­paren­cy and inde­pen­dence in review­ing how Alabama per­forms executions.

A Dallas County judge has rec­om­mend­ed that the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of a Jewish death-row pris­on­er be over­turned because his tri­al was poi­soned by the vir­u­lent anti-Semitic big­otry of the Texas judge who presided over his case.

A Texas dis­trict attor­ney has asked a Dallas judge to over­turn the cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tion of Jewish death-row pris­on­er Randy Halprin (pic­tured) because of the vir­u­lent anti-Semitism of the judge who presided over his tri­al and death sen­tence. On September 27, 2022, the sec­ond day of the Jewish high holy day of Rosh Hashanah, Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson filed a legal mem­o­ran­dum with pro­posed find­ings of fact and con­clu­sions of law that rec­om­mend­ed Halprin be grant­ed a new tri­al because his tri­al judge, Vickers Cunningham, ​“har­bored actu­al bias…