NEW VOICES: Republican Former Death Penalty Supporter Leads Repeal Effort in Utah

Stephen Urquhart (pic­tured), a Republican state sen­a­tor in Utah, sup­port­ed the death penal­ty until about a year ago, when a friend con­vinced him that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment did­n’t fit his con­ser­v­a­tive beliefs. Now Urquhart sees the death penal­ty as inef­fi­cient, cost­ly, and wrong and is the lead spon­sor of a bill to repeal the state’s death penal­ty. He said con­cerns about the cost of the death penal­ty and the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son changed his stance on the issue. In dis­cus­sions with his col­leagues in the leg­is­la­ture, he draws a dis­tinc­tion between, ​“the death penal­ty in real­i­ty and the death penal­ty in the­o­ry.” He points out the lengthy time between the time a death sen­tence is imposed and when it is car­ried out, which he says vic­tim­izes fam­i­lies and leaves them with ​“scars that can nev­er heal.” He also points to the high cost of the death penal­ty, which he placed at “$1.6 mil­lion for every pris­on­er we exe­cute.” Then, he says, ​“for the clinch­er, I ask my con­ser­v­a­tive friends what they think gov­ern­ment does extreme­ly well. And then I ask them what they think gov­ern­ment does per­fect­ly. And they usu­al­ly say, ​‘It does­n’t do any­thing per­fect­ly.’ And then I ask, ​‘Yet we’re going to give our­selves the god­like pow­er over life and death?’” He also said that, increas­ing­ly, he has moral qualms about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: ​“I’m think­ing that it’s wrong for gov­ern­ment to be in busi­ness in killing its own cit­i­zens. That cheap­ens life.” Described as a long­shot to suc­ceed this year, Urquhart’s bill to prospec­tive­ly repeal the death penal­ty passed Utah’s Senate Judiciary Committee with bipar­ti­san sup­port in February on a vote of 5 – 2. The bill will face debate by the full Senate lat­er in this legislative session.

(A. Phillips, ​“Why one Utah Republican changed his mind on the death penal­ty — and is lead­ing the effort to abol­ish it,” The Washington Post, February 26, 2016; M. Price, ​“Utah Senate Panel OKs Longshot Death Penalty Repeal,” Associated Press, February 23, 2016.) See New Voices and Recent Legislative Activity.