The summer of 2015 has unquestionably been a significant milestone for progressive politics in America. The Supreme Court maintained federally funded healthcare and gave LGBTQ couples the right to marry across the nation. Police reform, mandatory sentencing laws and the disproportionate impact of these policies on minority communities have become focal points of American politics. There’s even a socialist running a serious campaign for the American presidency.
But history may remember this summer for a change in American politics that has largely been unheralded. Through the actions of a governor, a state legislature and a state supreme court, three very different states used three very different means to bring the death penalty to an end. Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania each tackled the emotional, often distressing topic of capital punishment head on this year.
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the state’s 2012 repeal of the death penalty must be retroactive, thus sparing the lives of the 11 men on Connecticut’s death row, and another on trial in a capital murder case.
In Nebraska, the unicameral legislature voted three times to abolish the death penalty, and then a fourth to override the governor’s veto. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf (D) placed a temporary moratorium on the death penalty, citing concerns over wrongful convictions and the disproportionate sentencing of minorities.
The three states that have acted to end the death penalty this summer have once again reignited the most important political conversation our nation has been ignoring for far too long.
Thankfully, our nation has a legal system to prevent such retributive violence. As any lawyer worth his salt would say, our nation’s storied legal system maintains stability, not justice. When a defendant is tried in court, charges are brought against him or her by the state, not the victim or the victim’s family.
But America’s legal system still maintains a legal avenue for vengeance and retribution by maintaining the death penalty. Death penalty cases cost more than non-capital cases; it is cheaper to incarcerate an inmate for their entire life than keep them on death row; death sentences are disproportionately given to men and women of color; the deterrent effect of executions is questionable; in the last four decades, approximately 150 death row inmates have been exonerated, and we risk putting innocent men and women to death; most importantly, executions that are conducted correctly may constitute cruel and unusual punishment, thus violating the Constitution.
Yet a majority of states, the federal government and the military are still insistent on keeping a death penalty. These states are so insistent on ending human life that many have engaged in an almost farcical pursuit of new lethal injection drugs in the last year. Medical professionals will not engage in lethal injection executions over ethical concerns, and major pharmaceutical companies will not provide sedative drugs for similar reasons.
As a result, many states, including Arizona, have turned to less than reliable sources to obtain lethal injection drugs. The consequences have been horrific: Clayton Lockett writhed in pain when the needle inserted in his penis did not properly administer lethal drugs, and Joseph Wood took two hours to die.
States are also re-instituting archaic forms of killing. Multiple states have written in provisions to reinstitute electrocution, firing squad, hanging and lethal gas (although lethal injection remains the primary method across the U.S.).
In Nebraska, a traditionally Republican state, conservative lawmakers said they voted to abolish the death penalty because killing violated their belief in the sanctity of life. Horrible as these killers may be, they are human. Nebraska lawmakers also took note of a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling that found electrocution violated the state constitution’s provisions against cruel and unusual punishment (the Georgia supreme court has made a similar ruling).
On July 2014, 9th Circuit Judge and death-penalty advocate Alex Kozinski wrote that firing squad is undoubtedly the most efficient form of execution, but is unlikely to be implemented on a wide scale because of the gore it entails. Blood is spilled, and the death becomes less sanitary. What our nation must accept is that every execution is gory.
Blood is spilled every single time, even if it looks like the condemned is just falling asleep. And we are all paying for it. Murder is so abhorrent because the taking of life is by its very nature cruel and unusual.
Thank you Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania for recognizing the taking of life as no less cruel and unusual when sanctioned by the state, and working to bring this practice to an end. One day, the rest of the nation may just follow suit.
Related Links:
Counterpoint: The death penalty is dangerous
The U.S. needs a more humane death penalty
Reach the columnist at clmurph5@asu.edu or follow @ConnorLMurphy on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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