---
title: 'NEW VOICES: Former Supporter Will Oppose Any Measure to Restore Minnesota Death Penalty'
description: 'Minnesota Senator Tom Neuville, the leading Republican committee member on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, says he will oppose Governor Tim…'
canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/new-voices-former-supporter-will-oppose-any-measure-to-restore-minnesota-death-penalty-1'
section: news
date: '2011-04-21T18:24:00-04:00'
updated: '2025-03-14T14:59:53-04:00'
source: 'Death Penalty Information Center'
---

**Minnesota Senator Tom Neuville**, the leading Republican committee member on the state's Senate Judiciary Committee, says he will oppose Governor Tim Pawlenty's efforts to reinstate death penalty. Neuville's basic opposition is moral: "If we solve violence by becoming violent ourselves, we become diminished." Neuville, a former death penalty supporter whose reexamination of his pro-life beliefs led him to change his mind on the issue, feels that many of his colleagues share his concerns. "Life is a gift from God. It isn't up to us to take it away," Neuville said. "Whether you take an innocent life of a baby, or of a person who has committed a heinous act, it is still an act at our hands, and it makes us a less caring and less sensitive society." **Minnesota** abolished the death penalty in 1911.

(Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 7, 2003). See [New Voices](../../../../../../article.php?did=482&scid=16).