Pennsylvania Governor Announces Continuation of Moratorium on Executions and Calls for Legislation to Abolish the Death Penalty

On February 16, 2023, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that he will con­tin­ue his predecessor’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions and called upon the Pennsylvania General Assembly to repeal the death penalty.

At a press con­fer­ence in Philadelphia, the new­ly-elect­ed Shapiro explained how his posi­tion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has evolved and how his expe­ri­ence as the state’s Attorney General revealed two truths about the death penal­ty in the Commonwealth: ​“The sys­tem is fal­li­ble, and the out­come is irre­versible,” he said.

Shapiro promised to con­tin­ue for­mer Governor Tom Wolf’s halt on exe­cu­tions, stat­ing: ​“When an exe­cu­tion war­rant comes to my desk, I will sign a reprieve each and every time.” However, the gov­er­nor went beyond stop­ping exe­cu­tions and pledged to work with the General Assembly to take fur­ther action: ​“The Commonwealth shouldn’t be in the busi­ness of putting peo­ple to death. Period. I believe that in my heart. This is a fun­da­men­tal state­ment of moral­i­ty. Of what’s right and wrong. And I believe Pennsylvania must be on the right side of this issue.”

Since 1973, there have been 11 exon­er­a­tions from Pennsylvania’s death row – 5 of which occurred since 2019. During that same time, the state car­ried out three exe­cu­tions, all involv­ing pris­on­ers who waived their appeals, the last one occur­ring in 1999.