NEW VOICES: Basketball Star Stephen Curry — ​“I Don’t Believe in the Death Penalty”

Stephen Curry (pic­tured, right, dur­ing a 2015 vis­it to the White House), star of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and exec­u­tive pro­duc­er of the upcom­ing doc­u­men­tary Emanuel, has pub­licly voiced his oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty. Emanuel tells the sto­ry of the mur­der of nine Black mem­bers of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina by white suprema­cist Dylann Roof. It is the first film pro­duced by Curry’s pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, Unanimous Media, and was co-pro­duced by Viola Davis’s com­pa­ny JuVee Productions. After a January 23, 2019 advance screen­ing at Howard University, Curry par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pan­el dis­cus­sion of the movie’s themes, includ­ing faith, race rela­tions, for­give­ness, gun vio­lence, and the death penal­ty. Asked about his views on the death penal­ty and Dylann Roof’s death sen­tence, Curry said, ​“I don’t believe in the death penal­ty. I feel like there are sit­u­a­tions where an indi­vid­ual can be redeemed or be healed and men­tal­ly or phys­i­cal­ly with what­ev­er the issue is and the root of why they are in that sit­u­a­tion.” Curry also spoke about tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from the for­give­ness that vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers offered to Roof. ​“It’s hard for me to put myself in their shoes and empathize with what they’re going through. But it’s so inspir­ing the way they han­dled it. They chose for­give­ness. They chose faith. They chose to sup­port each oth­er and the com­mu­ni­ty. That alone speaks vol­umes for human­i­ty and hope of humanity.”

Curry also addressed the issue of ath­letes becom­ing involved in social caus­es. ​“Athletes in gen­er­al, espe­cial­ly in the NBA, guys are edu­cat­ed. They know what they’re talk­ing about,” he said. ​“They know what they believe. And there’s a rea­son when you say some­thing there are head­lines. People want to hear what you have to say. We shouldn’t shy away from it.” He praised the NBA and its com­mis­sion­er, Adam Silver, for ​“support[ing] us in using our voice to speak for those who can’t speak for them­selves. And I think this era of ath­lete is unafraid to be unapolo­get­i­cal­ly them­selves, what­ev­er that means.”

Emanuel will be released in select the­aters on June 17, 2019, the fourth anniver­sary of the shoot­ing at Emanuel AME Church.

(Mark Medina, Stephen Curry defends pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes speak­ing out on issues, Mercury News, January 24, 2019; Ericka Blount Danois, Emanuel: NBA Star Steph Curry Debuts Poignant Documentary About the Murder of 9 Parishioners at South Carolina Church, The Root, January 25, 2019; Ben Strauss, ​‘This era of ath­lete is unafraid’: Stephen Curry speaks up in D.C., again with­out White House trip, Washington Post, January 24, 2019.) See New Voices and Victims.