New Discussions With DPIC Podcast: Hannah Cox on Conservative Opposition to the Death Penalty

In the March 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Hannah Cox (pic­tured), National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP) speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about the con­tin­u­ing move­ment by social and polit­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tives away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, how the death penal­ty is out of step with core con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues, and the key role that con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors are play­ing in abo­li­tion efforts across the U.S.

Describing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Cox says: ​“This isn’t some­thing that val­ues the sanc­ti­ty of human life. This isn’t some­thing that uses our resources effi­cient­ly. This is real­ly just a failed big gov­ern­ment pro­gram.” Those are some of the rea­sons, she says, that con­ser­v­a­tives who have edu­cat­ed them­selves about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment oppose the practice. 

In her con­ver­sa­tion with Dunham, Cox explains her per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion on the issue. Growing up as the daugh­ter of a Southern Baptist min­is­ter, Cox said she had been taught that the death penal­ty was ​“not only appro­pri­ate, but jus­ti­fied and need­ed.” Over time, as she learned more about the issue, she began to ques­tion how it fit with her beliefs about small gov­ern­ment, fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the sanc­ti­ty of life. ​“I’m a con­ser­v­a­tive because I believe in lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment,” she said. ​“I know that gov­ern­ment is fal­li­ble. I know it’s prone to error. I know it’s prone to cor­rup­tion.” When it comes to law enforce­ment and the courts, she found, the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is sub­ject to the same prob­lems as any oth­er area of government. 

In October 2017, Conservatives Concerned issued a report, The Right Way, that tracked ​“the dra­mat­ic rise in Republican spon­sor­ship of bills to end the death penal­ty.” Cox and Dunham dis­cuss the lead­er­ship role con­ser­v­a­tives are play­ing in bipar­ti­san efforts to repeal the death penal­ty across the United States. In 2019, Cox notes, Republican-spon­sored bills to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment were intro­duced in ten states, with a total of 56 Republican spon­sors. Republican sup­port was essen­tial to the pas­sage of repeal mea­sures in New Hampshire in 2019 and Colorado in 2020. Republican lead­er­ship is also spear­head­ing the abo­li­tion cam­paign in staunch­ly con­ser­v­a­tive Wyoming, where a con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tor intro­duced a repeal bill in 2019 and now has the sup­port of 40 co-sponsors. 

Before join­ing CCATDP two years ago, Cox worked for the free-mar­ket think tank, the Beacon Center of Tennessee. She had pre­vi­ous­ly worked with the Tennessee Firearms Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Referencing her back­ground in free-mar­ket eco­nom­ics, Cox dis­cussed the impact of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies on the death penal­ty sys­tem. She said that the actions of drug com­pa­nies that have blocked their prod­ucts from being used in lethal injec­tion reflect the glob­al view of the death penal­ty as a human rights issue, and that mar­ket actions like those demon­strate the sta­tus of an issue in ways a poll nev­er could. She also reflect­ed on how exe­cu­tion secre­cy has inter­fered with the free mar­ket by allow­ing states to vio­late their con­tracts with drug companies.

Cox, who works at a grass­roots lev­el on state repeal cam­paigns, shared her insights about the sta­tus of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the com­ing years. Virginia, she said, could play an impor­tant role in death-penal­ty repeal or reform, as the state moves to pro­hib­it cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness and con­sid­ers repeal leg­is­la­tion. ​“I think that they could be the tip­ping point for the Bible Belt,” Cox told Dunham. ​“I think that … if one state is to get rid of it in that region, it could have a bit of a domi­no effect.” Ohio, Republican gov­er­nor and speak­er of the house have both expressed con­cerns about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, is also a ​“state to watch,” she said. CCATDP recent­ly launched its 14^th state chap­ter in Ohio, and more than 35 con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers in the state have signed the group’s Statement of Support to End the Death Penalty. With grow­ing sup­port for abo­li­tion in Wyoming and Utah, even more major changes in the nation­al death-penal­ty land­scape are on the hori­zon. ​“Within the next ten years, I don’t think you’ll see this sys­tem any­more,” Cox concluded.