A new orga­ni­za­tion–Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty–made its debut at the recent 2013 Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) con­fer­ence near Washington, D.C. The group ques­tions whether cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment aligns with con­ser­v­a­tive prin­ci­ples and includes promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers from across the coun­try, includ­ing Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, Roy Brown, for­mer Montana House Majority Leader, and Richard Viguerie (pic­tured), a promi­nent con­sul­tant for the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment. Mr. Sekulow not­ed, ​“Conservatives should ques­tion how the death penal­ty actu­al­ly works in order to stay true to small gov­ern­ment, reduc­tion in waste­ful spend­ing, and respect for human life.” Mr. Brown added, ​“It might be eas­i­er to allow the death penal­ty to con­tin­ue if it were less expen­sive than life in prison; if the courts treat­ed rich and poor equal­ly; if it tru­ly was a deter­rent and if every­one that was exe­cut­ed was guilty. But the death penal­ty is none of those things.”

The group cit­ed spe­cif­ic areas of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that raised concerns:

- The risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son
 — The com­pli­cat­ed process that has drained resources
 — The fail­ure to serve vic­tims’ fam­i­lies
 — The fail­ure to keep com­mu­ni­ties safe
 — The lack of fairness.

Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is a project of Equal Justice USA, a nation­al, non-par­ti­san, grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion work­ing on crim­i­nal jus­tice issues. See www​.con​ser​v​a​tivescon​cerned​.org.

(J. Merritt, ​“Will Conservatives Unite Against the Death Penalty?” Religion News Service, March 14, 2013; Press Release from Equal Justice USA). See New Voices.

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