Mixed Response to Federal Execution Announcement: Conservatives, Catholic Bishops Oppose Decision, Arizona Announces Plans to Follow Federal Lethal-Injection Protocol

The announce­ment by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that it intends to resume fed­er­al exe­cu­tions after a 16-year hia­tus has sparked com­men­tary from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum and embold­ened the Arizona Attorney General to seek a resump­tion of exe­cu­tions in that state. Responses from con­ser­v­a­tive pun­dits demon­strat­ed the increas­ing bipar­ti­san skep­ti­cism towards the death penal­ty. Catholic bish­ops reassert­ed the Church’s now unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Editorial boards reflect­ed region­al dif­fer­ences in perspective. 

A num­ber of con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tors voiced strong oppo­si­tion to the DOJ deci­sion, say­ing it vio­lat­ed con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues. Jared Olsen (pic­tured), a Republican mem­ber of the Wyoming House of Representatives who has spon­sored leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish that state’s death penal­ty, not­ed the con­tin­u­ing con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as ​“more con­ser­v­a­tives have come to real­ize that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment con­flicts irrec­on­cil­ably with their prin­ci­ples of valu­ing life, fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty and lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment.” In an op-ed in in The New York Times, Olsen ques­tioned the admin­is­tra­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, writ­ing: ​“Punishment for crime has his­tor­i­cal­ly been a state pre­rog­a­tive. Yet many of the peo­ple on fed­er­al death row are there for crimes that have lit­tle to do with a real fed­er­al inter­est.” An opin­ion arti­cle for Fox News by Hannah Cox, the National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, described the death penal­ty as ​“a failed Big Government pro­gram” that offends con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues, and said “[o]ur fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is fail­ing by embracing it.” 

Two opin­ion pieces in The Federalist, a right-lean­ing news web­site, also crit­i­cized the fed­er­al government’s use of the death penal­ty. ​“Not only is it a bar­bar­ic mech­a­nism for a mod­ern gov­ern­ment to use, but it is used in a whol­ly imper­fect jus­tice sys­tem, prone to human error,” wrote Molly Davis. ​“Allowing the gov­ern­ment to decide when to end a person’s life based on the crim­i­nal laws it writes is one of the most tyran­ni­cal pow­ers a soci­ety can grant a cen­tral author­i­ty. … Anyone who believes in per­son­al lib­er­ty should oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” In the same pub­li­ca­tion, Federalist assis­tant edi­tor Kylee Zempel presents sev­er­al con­ser­v­a­tive argu­ments for end­ing the death penal­ty, which she calls ​“objec­tive­ly bad pol­i­cy.” In The Spectator, Stephen Daisley called the death penal­ty ​“red tape thread­ed into a noose” and said ​“on con­ser­v­a­tive grounds it is no longer defen­si­ble.” He not­ed that its high cost vio­lates prin­ci­ples of fis­cal con­ser­vatism, and that ​“how­ev­er much mon­ey is spent on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, there is lit­tle evi­dence it works.” 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops crit­i­cized the administration’s deci­sion to sched­ule five exe­cu­tion dates. In a state­ment on behalf of the Conference, Bishop Frank J. Dewane wrote: ​“In light of [the Church’s] long held and strong­ly main­tained posi­tions, I am deeply con­cerned by the announce­ment by the United States Justice Department that it will once again turn, after many years, to the death penal­ty as a form of pun­ish­ment.” The state­ment urged fed­er­al offi­cials to ​“aban­don the announced plans for exe­cu­tions.” Cardinal Blase J. Cupich called the announce­ment ​“grave­ly inju­ri­ous to the com­mon good, as it effaces the God-giv­en dig­ni­ty of all human beings, even those who have com­mit­ted terrible crimes.” 

Local news­pa­pers in two regions that have seen major fed­er­al death-penal­ty cas­es also opined on the deci­sion. The Rutland (Vermont) Herald, which had close­ly cov­ered the fed­er­al case of Donald Fell, pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al oppos­ing the resump­tion of fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. Vermont does not have the death penal­ty, but Fell was sen­tenced to death under fed­er­al law. His sen­tence was over­turned and he was resen­tenced to life with­out parole in 2018. The Herald edi­to­r­i­al board called the deci­sion to resume exe­cu­tions ​“anoth­er dis­grace to this nation.” It wrote: ​“Retribution solves noth­ing; and cap­i­tal crim­i­nals — of which we have many — are bet­ter off jailed with no hope of parole. That is plen­ty enough pun­ish­ment with­out resort­ing to killing.” On the oth­er hand, the Texarkana (Arkansas) Gazette laud­ed the DOJ announce­ment. The Gazette edi­tors called cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“some­thing that should not be tak­en light­ly.” However, it wrote, ​“there is a time for that pun­ish­ment. After the sen­tence is passed there is the appeals process. The con­demned have their jus­tice. But when the appeals are exhaust­ed, there are still fam­i­ly and friends of the vic­tims wait­ing for their jus­tice. Now, thanks to Barr and the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, it looks like that jus­tice will final­ly come.” One of the five pend­ing exe­cu­tion cas­es is a Texas case, and anoth­er is from the Texarkana bor­der region of Arkansas. 

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich pig­gy­backed on the fed­er­al move, writ­ing a let­ter to Governor Doug Ducey seek­ing to resume exe­cu­tions in the state. Arizona has not put any pris­on­er to death since the botched exe­cu­tion of Joseph Wood in 2014. Witnesses report­ed that Wood gasped and snort­ed more than 600 times over a near­ly two-hour-long peri­od as the state inject­ed 15 dos­es of exe­cu­tion drugs. Executions were on hold pend­ing now com­plet­ed lit­i­ga­tion in fed­er­al court. Brnovich’s let­ter said that the fed­er­al government’s announce­ment ​“sug­gests that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has suc­cess­ful­ly obtained pen­to­bar­bi­tal” and the state attor­ney gen­er­al asked for the governor’s assis­tance in obtain­ing pen­to­bar­bi­tal for executions.