A conservative case for ending the death penalty
It’s not often that liberals and conservatives have an opportunity to agree on public policy but Governor Mike DeWine’s call to repeal Ohio’s death penalty is one such case.
Our liberal friends argue that executions are barbaric and that retaining the practice puts us in the company of some of the worst regimes in the world. Both are true.
Others — on both sides of the ideological divide — find support for their positions in religious teachings. The Sixth Commandment in the Judeo-Christian tradition — “Thou shalt not kill” — seems pretty clear but further reading in the texts and centuries of theological interpretations leave room for doubt.
I don’t find any of those positions to be a strong foundation for good public policy other than the fact that legislating is about winning enough hearts and minds to earn a majority of votes.
A truly conservative perspective seeks the least intrusive and most effective policies to protect life, liberty, and promote justice. Capital punishment doesn’t meet that standard.
As an aside, I’m writing this while visiting Scotland and invoking “a truly conservative perspective” treads dangerously close to the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy. Bear with me as I try to extricate myself from it.
Also from the UK, one of the foundational principles of our criminal justice system is Blackstone’s Formulation or Blackstone’s Ratio. Most know it as, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
According to one source, “Since 1973, at least 202 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated.” Another study found that at least 4% of death row inmates ought to be exonerated as well. While there are well-sourced rebuttals to those claims, and exoneration doesn’t equate to actual innocence, the chance of even one is too many.
There is also an inescapable racial disparity in capital cases that is heavily biased in favor of white victims. It’s a persistently disturbing reality that Black males commit nearly 40% of all homicides despite being less than seven percent of the population. Nonetheless, a death sentence is much more likely to be imposed when the victim is white.
Numerous procedural safeguards have been instituted to resolve some of these problems. But those result in decades of delay from sentencing to execution. Modern forensic tools like DNA can provide greater clarity, but 100 percent certainty will always remain elusive.
While some of the delays are no doubt stalling tactics by those who oppose capital punishment, much of the remaining backlog is unavoidable to prevent an unacceptable increase in the risk of error. And the concept that “justice delayed is justice denied” has deep biblical, philosophical, and historical roots. The delays from the necessary procedural safeguards therefore necessarily stifle timely justice.
Supporters of capital punishment often — and understandably — invoke the need for the families of victims to have “closure.” Except the evidence doesn’t really support such a concept. That’s because the grief from loss doesn’t die even when the perpetrator who caused it does.
I empathize with families who seek vengeance for heinous crimes against their loved ones. If I were in their shoes, I’d have to be restrained by force should I have the opportunity to seek vengeance myself. I would be willing to bear the consequences of doing so as they would fall only to me. The same cannot be said for shifting that role to the state.
Though many claim that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder, the evidence doesn’t support it. The only thing it achieves is to permanently remove dangerous people from society. Life in prison without the possibility of parole effectively and more efficiently accomplishes the same objective.
Finally, supporters of capital punishment believe it would save money compared to life in prison. It doesn’t. The evidence consistently shows that capital punishment costs far more, including all the safeguards necessary to minimize the risk of executing the innocent.
There’s no better time than the year of our nation’s 250th birthday to abolish a part of our criminal justice system that is best left in the past.
Our liberal friends might vote with their hearts, but conservatives should recognize when a public policy — even a long-standing one like capital punishment — isn’t worth conserving.
Recent polling finds a slim majority of public support for abolishing capital punishment in Ohio. If our lame duck governor is serious about making it happen, he’ll need to expend significant political capital to convince enough of our legislators. The truest conservatism isn’t defending what we’ve always done — it’s admitting when what we’ve always done simply doesn’t work.