NEW VOICES: Tennessee Business Leader Underscores Problems with the Death Penalty

“Speaking as a busi­ness leader, a proud, life­time Tennessean and a human being, it’s time for the state to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” wrote Mac Bartine, CEO of Knoxville-based tech com­pa­ny Smartria, in an op-ed for Knox News. Bartine described the find­ings of the 2022 inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into Tennessee’s exe­cu­tion prac­tices, which found that the state repeat­ed­ly failed to adhere to its own pro­to­col. ​“The report proved what we have known for years – that the death penal­ty has no place in our soci­ety,” he wrote.

Beyond the issues iden­ti­fied in the report issued on December 28, 2022, Bartine high­light­ed the exor­bi­tant cost of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in its appli­ca­tion, and the poten­tial pit­falls to attract­ing busi­ness to the state. Speaking from his per­spec­tive as a busi­ness­man, Bartine raised con­cerns that ​“the death penal­ty decreas­es the ben­e­fits of our thought­ful­ly-cre­at­ed busi­ness-friend­ly cli­mate, as com­pa­nies have strong­ly voiced their feel­ings about invest­ing in states with the death penal­ty. More than 250 promi­nent cor­po­rate lead­ers, led by Virgin Founder Richard Branson, have come togeth­er to call for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment every­where.” Some sig­na­to­ries include Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever; Jared Smith, co-founder of Qualtrics; and Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital. ​“Persisting in such an unpop­u­lar and inef­fec­tive prac­tice gives pause to cor­po­rate lead­ers who would oth­er­wise be strong­ly inter­est­ed in bring­ing desir­able oppor­tu­ni­ties to our state,” added Bartine.

“Beyond costs, the death penal­ty’s human flaws are as trag­ic as they are shock­ing. For every eight exe­cu­tions in the United States, one inno­cent death row inmate has been exon­er­at­ed and released – typ­i­cal­ly after years of unjust incar­cer­a­tion,” added Bartine.

He also point­ed to evi­dence of racial bias: ​“Although Black peo­ple make up just 16% of our state’s pop­u­la­tion, near­ly half of Tennessee’s death row is Black. If we want to claim our state is a tol­er­ant, fair and just place to live and work, we should do away with this hor­rif­i­cal­ly error-prone and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tice,” he wrote.