The death penalty in the United States is dying. Not in Alabama -- not yet, at least -- but nationally it is dying. Good riddance.
Killing death-row inmates doesn’t deter violent crime, statistics show. Killing death-row inmates is more expensive than giving them life sentences with no chance of parole. Killing death-row inmates is blood sport for tough-on-crime advocates and aligns our nation and its stated Christian values not with our historic allies, but instead with the likes of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
But make no mistake. The death penalty in the United States is dying. Good riddance.
With only a few weeks remaining in this calendar year, 2018 will be the fourth straight year with fewer than 30 executions and 50 death sentences in America, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reported Friday.
Outside of Texas, the United States killed fewer inmates this year (25) than in any year since 1991. Worse, though, is that “more than 70 % of the people executed showed evidence of serious mental illness, brain damage, intellectual impairment, or chronic abuse and trauma, and 4 were executed despite substantial innocence claims,” the DPIC wrote.
Washington state in October became the 20th state, along with the District of Columbia, to stop killing inmates. That state’s Supreme Court, the DPIC reported, decided that executions violate its state constitution because it “is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.” Likewise, there are strong indications Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania may follow Washington state’s lead.
Alabamians by and large may support the death penalty, but they must also acknowledge this truth: only 8 states killed inmates this year -- Alabama (which held two executions), Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas -- a number that, like executions themselves, is steadily declining. On that, we are in a regrettable minority.
The death penalty in the United States is dying, slowly and methodically. Good riddance.
Source: The Anniston Star, Editorial Board, December 16, 2018
⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us:
deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.
Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde