New Generation of Prosecutors May Signal Shift in Death Penalty Policies

A new gen­er­a­tion of pros­e­cu­tors, elect­ed across the coun­try on a plat­form of crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, are tak­ing a dif­fer­ent approach to crim­i­nal jus­tice poli­cies than their pre­de­ces­sors, includ­ing a reduc­tion in the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. A Christian Science Monitor pro­file of these pros­e­cu­tors — focus­ing on Mark Gonzalez (pic­tured), the Nueces County, Texas, dis­trict attor­ney — says “[f]rom Texas to Florida to Illinois, many of these young pros­e­cu­tors are eschew­ing the death penal­ty, talk­ing reha­bil­i­ta­tion as much as pun­ish­ment, and often refus­ing to charge peo­ple for minor offenses.” 

Their reform mea­sures not only cre­ate greater oppor­tu­ni­ties for reha­bil­i­ta­tion of offend­ers, but also reduce costs for the coun­ty and state gov­ern­ments. Stanford Law Professor David Alan Sklansky said, ​“It does seem to be a new and sig­nif­i­cant phe­nom­e­non. It’s rare to see so many races where the dis­trict attor­ney is chal­lenged, where they lose, and where they lost to can­di­dates call­ing not for harsh­er approach­es, but for more bal­anced and thought­ful, more restrained, more pro­gres­sive approach­es to punishment.” 

In 2016, sev­er­al new pros­e­cu­tors who ran on reform plat­forms in major death-penal­ty coun­ties defeat­ed entrenched incum­bents: Kim Ogg in Harris County, Texas; Andrew Warren in Hillsborough County, Florida; and Charles Henderson in Jefferson County, Alabama all pledged to reduce the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Caddo Parish, Louisiana’s District Attorney James Stewart, elect­ed in 2015, has backed away from that parish’s aggres­sive use of the death penal­ty while Denver District Attorney Beth McCann and Orlando State Attorney Aramis Ayala, both elect­ed in 2016, have said they would not pur­sue the death penal­ty. In May 2017, Larry Krasner, a death-penal­ty oppo­nent, won the Democratic nom­i­na­tion for Philadelphia District Attorney, mak­ing him the favorite to win the gen­er­al elec­tion in November. 

Kim Ogg described the rea­sons for her sup­port of crim­i­nal-jus­tice reform, say­ing, ​“In the last decade the American peo­ple have lit­er­al­ly lost faith in the fair­ness of our jus­tice sys­tem. If they think we’re rig­ging the sys­tem, or try­ing to force out­comes, then they’re not going to par­tic­i­pate, and to me that is a huge threat to our democ­ra­cy.” Gonzalez says he has not decid­ed how he will approach the death penal­ty, and in the mean­time is still fil­ing death penal­ty cas­es. But, he says, ​“We’re try­ing to change things. … The cul­ture is changing.”