In a recent op-ed in the Chicago Tribune fol­low­ing Illinois​’s abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, author and attor­ney Scott Turow (pic­tured) out­lined three major con­ser­v­a­tive rea­sons for oppos­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: it is a failed gov­ern­ment pro­gram, it is a waste of mon­ey, and it does­n’t fit with the idea of lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment. Turow served on for­mer Governor George Ryan’s Commission on Capital Punishment, which found numer­ous prob­lems with the state’s death penal­ty. In high­light­ing the fail­ures of the sys­tem, Turow said, ​“For con­ser­v­a­tives who believe gov­ern­ment is too large, too inef­fi­cient and too unwieldy to deliv­er health care, or even the mail for that mat­ter, it should come as no sur­prise that gov­ern­ment efforts to just­ly select those wor­thy of death has been a moral dis­as­ter.” On the issue of costs, he addressed the high cost of death penal­ty tri­als and appeals and the lack of deter­rent effect, say­ing, ​“if the death penal­ty clear­ly served a prac­ti­cal pur­pose like sav­ing lives, these increased costs might be worth it. But in Illinois we have expe­ri­enced a steady decline in our mur­der rate since Gov. Ryan first declared the mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions.” Turow closed by not­ing that some of our European allies abol­ished the death penal­ty as a reac­tion to the hor­rors of World War II. ​“The con­ser­v­a­tive-lib­er­tar­i­an view that says that the pow­ers of gov­ern­ment must be strict­ly lim­it­ed sup­ports draw­ing a clear line pro­hibit­ing a demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment from ever law­ful­ly killing any of the cit­i­zens from whom it draws pow­er. That way a regime that van­ished its polit­i­cal ene­mies or exe­cut­ed despised minori­ties would mark itself, what­ev­er the legal rig­amo­role, as an outlaw.”

(S. Turow, ​“The right has rea­son to applaud,” Chicago Tribune, March 10, 2011). See New Voices and Recent Legislation.

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