About 30 people gathered Friday outside the South Dakota state penitentiary in northern Sioux Falls in support of ending the death penalty in South Dakota.
The group met for about an hour for a vigil, mostly through prayer and reflection, not far from where two men,
Donald Moeller and
Eric Robert, were put to death by lethal injection last October.
The vigil, called the Annual Good Friday Vigil Against the Death Penalty, was organized by the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center, South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Pax Christi.
The groups are not defending the actions of those on death row, said Mark Sanderson, a member of the Peace and Justice Center.
“It does not make sense in our society to kill someone who has killed other people,” Sanderson said. “It’s a matter of looking at the violence in our society and how this particular act is another indication on how we need to curb our violence the best that we can.”
The vigil has taken place for about 20 years next to the flagpole on state Department of Correction grounds, he said. Three men, Charles Rhines, Briley Piper and Rodney Berget, are on death row in South Dakota. Seventeen states are without the death penalty, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
After the vigil, some members of the group signed a living will document, which declares that if the signer is killed, the perpetrator can’t be executed by the state. The document was notarized on site.
Michael Sprong of Yankton said he signed a living will document years ago and has been advocating for the state to end of the death penalty since 1992.
“I don’t want my name connected to the killing of people in South Dakota,” Sprong said. “I’m a citizen here, I’m represented when the state kills people, it’s done in my name. I’m here to say, not in my name.”
Connie Irwin, a member of the Peace and Justice Center and Pax Christi, drove down from Brookings to attend the vigil.
“We are here to say that, we as a people, as a state, should not be killing people,” Irwin said. “There is such a thing for those who have killed others, such a thing as restorative justice. At the same time, our hearts go out to the victims and the families, but we also don’t think the state should be killing people.”
