Former Governor Bill Richardson: Death Penalty Is Bad for Business, Out of Step With World’s Views

In a Washington Post op-ed, for­mer New Mexico Governor and United Nations Ambassador Bill Richardson (pic­tured) — who in 2009 signed a bill to abol­ish his state’s death penal­ty — urged that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment be abol­ished in the United States, say­ing “[t]he prac­tice is wrong and I hope it isn’t long for this world.” 

Richardson said he sup­port­ed the death penal­ty for decades before ​“empir­i­cal evi­dence and com­mon sense” con­vinced him that the prac­tice should end. That evi­dence, he writes, includ­ed that that ​“the death penal­ty is an inef­fec­tive deter­rent, is unfair­ly applied and has become increas­ing­ly cost­ly for states.” 

Richardson now serves as a com­mis­sion­er on the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, advo­cat­ing the world­wide abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. He explains how the use of the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly lethal injec­tion, hurts state busi­ness inter­ests by putting them at odds with the views of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies. Using Arkansas’ April 2017 flur­ry of exe­cu­tions as an exam­ple, he writes, ​“In their effort to push through these exe­cu­tions, state offi­cials need­less­ly has­tened the appli­ca­tion of an unjust pol­i­cy while sense­less­ly plac­ing Arkansas at odds with the pri­vate sec­tor.” McKesson, a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­trib­u­tor, sued the state of Arkansas for using ​“false pre­tense, trick­ery, and bad faith” to obtain execution drugs. 

Richardson also points to a recent vote by the Delaware House of Representatives to rein­state the death penal­ty, say­ing, ​“As a state that has worked suc­cess­ful­ly for decades to build an inter­na­tion­al brand as America’s lead­ing incor­po­ra­tion venue, a major source of its rev­enue, Delaware could lose if the glob­al­ly dis­fa­vored death penal­ty once again becomes law.” 

Richardson also ties his inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence to the issue, writ­ing, ​“States that con­tin­ue to employ the death penal­ty will remain iso­lat­ed from the grow­ing inter­na­tion­al con­sen­sus.” ​“To effec­tive­ly rep­re­sent the inter­ests of cit­i­zens, and pro­tect our nation’s role as a glob­al leader,” he con­cludes, ​“a new gen­er­a­tion of pol­i­cy­mak­ers and politi­cians must put the death penal­ty to rest once and for all.”