More Conservatives Turn Away From Death Penalty

[question everything]

In a deeply conservative Utah county, a Republican prosecutor has announced that he will no longer seek the death penalty in any of his cases, joining a growing movement of conservatives across the country pushing for an end to capital punishment. The move by Utah County Attorney David Leavitt, which was prompted, he said, by growing concern over the morality and cost of capital punishment, has caused anguish for two families who have waited four years hoping to see the man accused of killing two teenagers sentenced to death. Mr. Leavitt sat down with the victims’ families in September, just before he announced he would no longer seek the death penalty in cases.

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Mr. Leavitt isn’t alone as more Republican lawmakers and prosecutors are abandoning one of the party’s long-held policies and champion an end to capital punishment. He also joins the many Democratic officeholders who have opposed the death penalty for decades. Conservative legislators in both Utah and Ohio are sponsoring bills to end the death penalty, and there have been signs of early momentum. Virginia in March became the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty, with three House Republicans joining the Democrats voting in favor. In 2019, New Hampshire repealed the death penalty, with a large share of the GOP caucus voting for repeal, overriding a veto by a Republican governor.

Across the country, the death penalty has been in continued decline. In 2020, there were the fewest state executions in 37 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organization that is critical of the death penalty. More than two-thirds of states have now either abolished capital punishment or not carried out an execution in at least 10 years. This past week Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, halted the execution of the death-row inmate Julius Jones after his attorneys worked to raise doubts about the evidence presented at trial and on whether racial bias had played a role in the outcome of the case. Politicians and prosecutors say the shift is driven in part by concern about the cost of capital cases, which has ballooned as the appeals process has grown more extensive. The exoneration of dozens of death row inmates has led to concern about whether the state can be trusted to decide matters of life and death.

Mr. Leavitt said that, as a conservative who believes in limited government, he had grown increasingly convinced that the state shouldn’t have the right to kill people. This one death penalty case was also draining resources away from the more than 4,000 cases his office is juggling. He has devoted four lawyers to one death penalty case, while some other attorneys handle some 125 serious cases each.

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The same day that Mr. Leavitt said he would no longer seek the death penalty in this case or any others, two state legislators held a press conference announcing that they would introduce a bill to repeal the death penalty and replace it with an option for prosecutors to seek a sentence of 45 years to life. Utah’s legislative session doesn’t begin until next year, but the proposal has some early momentum. Two Republican and two Democratic prosecutors representing some of the most-populous counties in the state published a letter to the governor and state legislators calling for repeal.

Nore

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-conservatives-turn-away-from-death-penalty-11637409600 (subscription)

[Haggard Celine]

1. My dad is pretty conservative, but not unusually so for a

70+ year-old southerner. He was always very much in favor of the death penalty in the past. The Bible calls for it in a variety of circumstances, after all. Besides, we shouldn't put those guys (usually guys) up in prison for years. It's a waste of tax money!

Well I told him that we were spending a lot more on appeals for condemned people than it cost to keep them alive. I don't know if that was the argument that did it or if he came to his decision some other way, but he started telling people a few years ago that he was against the death penalty.

I was pleased, but I can't take credit, really. It was probably a combination of what I said combined with his own conscience. But there is hope to ending that barbaric practice in this country, and with the help of conservatives.