So far 1,870 people, mostly Kentuckians, have signed this this online petition asking Gov. Steve Beshear and state representatives and senators to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky. If you haven’t done so yet, please sign the petition today. It takes just 30 seconds. Thanks!
– January 19, 2012
John Donohue
From The New York Times‘s “The Random Horror of the Death Penalty“:
A number of studies in the last three decades have shown that black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim is white rather than black. But defenders of capital punishment often respond to those studies by arguing that the “worst of the worst” are sentenced to death because their crimes are the most egregious.
The Connecticut study, conducted by John Donohue, a Stanford law professor, completely dispels this erroneous reasoning. It analyzed all murder cases in Connecticut over a 34-year period and found that inmates on death row are indistinguishable from equally violent offenders who escape that penalty. It shows that the process in Connecticut — similar to those in other death-penalty states — is utterly arbitrary and discriminatory…
In 2011, the number of new death sentences imposed in the United States fell by 25 percent to 78, the lowest number since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. This “freakishly” rare application — among the thousands of murder cases a year — is strong evidence that every state system is arbitrary and capricious. The death penalty in Connecticut is clearly unconstitutional, barbaric and should be abolished, as it should be everywhere.
Photo: Courtesy Stanford Law School
– February 8, 2012
Ernie Lewis
In the Lexington Herald-Leader, retired public defender Ernie Lewis argues that Kentucky should “Suspend [the] state’s death penalty lottery“:
When I became Kentucky’s public advocate in 1996, one of the first things I did was to call on policy makers to follow the American Bar Association’s call for a moratorium on executions. I’d been a public defender for 19 years and, after handling numerous capital cases, had seen firsthand that the death penalty was broken beyond repair.
In 12 years as public advocate, everything I saw reinforced that view. I saw the death penalty was being used against the poor, people with mental retardation and mental illness, as well as people of color. I saw that many lawyers defending capital defendants were not qualified and that the death penalty was used in some counties but not in others.
The problems with the death penalty are once again staring us in the face. A group of prominent Kentuckians, including two former Supreme Court justices, has spent the last two years conducting an in-depth study of how the death penalty works in our state.
What they found has to undermine significantly any confidence we have in this system of life and death. Their report contains a number of very troubling findings…
Read more reasons about why Kentucky should abolish its broken death penalty at “Suspend state’s death penalty.”
Photo: Courtesy Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy
– February 6, 2012
Almost 2,000 people—mostly from Kentucky—have signed this petition to abolish Kentucky’s death penalty. If you haven’t done so yet, please let your legislators know you favor ending Kentucky’s broken, risky, and costly death penalty by signing it now.
Here are some of the comments Kentuckians—from different political parties, religions, family members of murder victims, pro-life and pro-choice, and parts of the state, even some who support the death penalty in theory—have given for why the state can do better than the death penalty:
“Please support HB 145 when it comes to committee and the floor. We must end the death penalty in KY. The death penalty is cruel, ungodly,unchristian and unforgiving.” – John G., Louisville
“I don’t want a wrongly accused person to be killed. I want people to have a chance to repent for what they have done. Why do we kill people, who kill people to show that killing people is wrong? Death Row is expensive I am ProLife!” – Hillary M., Owensboro
“Death penalty cases are very expensive and often faulty.” – Lawrence V., Monticello
“How much money can Ky. save by abolishing the death penalty and following the current sentence guidelines for life without parole?”– John M., Lexington
“I have been on both ends of the murder debate. My sister was murdered in 1969. My father spent the last 18 years of his life as a death row chaplain. If you execute, then you have denied them the chance to repent—in the end you have cheated God and gifted the devil. Please don’t kill in my name!” – Patty S., Dawson Springs
“1) I don’t want an innocent person killed who was wrongly accused 2) The cost of those on death row—appeals, isolation, etc. 3) It doesn’t give a person time to repent 4)There is discrimination in the system.” – Joe W., Owensboro
“My opposition to the death penalty has nothing to do win how bad the crime was. The death penalty makes a killer out of me.” — Laurie S., Crestwood
“Too many people on Death Row have been proven innocent. Kentucky should not kill innocent people.” – Dennis S., Bardstown
“2 reasons; It’s inhuman & the legal system is so imperfect that mistakes are made regularly, that making a mistake and taking a life is totally because of it, is not acceptable.” — Phyllis E., Burlington
“The taking of an innocent life is wrong, but it does not make taking a guilty life any more right.” – Sue L., Newport
“Please end the Death Penalty.” – Alma, Auburn
“This is the only Scriptural response from the New Testament possible.” – Edward H., Henderson
“I know our system of justice doesn’t always get it right and therefore, the death penalty runs the risk of executing innocent people. Please stop this tragedy.” – Michael G., Cold Spring
‘It is better that 100 guilty go free than for one innocent be executed. (Voltaire I think).” – Frank D., Auxier
“The way ky law is allows more protection for the one on trial to go free/Also too many years waiting if get death penalty so may be cheaper to house them without death roll/I imagine it costs more/.” – Wanda L., Elizabethtown
“I would like the death penalty ended in KY. JUst one mistake would be enough and the record as noted in the ABA assessment is appalling.” – Sandra T., Florence
“My father was murdered while my brother was taken hostage with AK-47′s held to his head. Even with this unthinkable tragedy, I cannot support the death penalty. It solves absolutely nothing on either end. Please. End the death penalty in Kentucky. Be a leader in the world.” – Miriam H., Louisville
– February 3, 2012
The Catholic Mobilizing Network's January issue highlighted Kentucky's death penalty abolition efforts.
KCADP chair Rev. Pat Delahanty penned this article on Kentucky’s death penalty abolition efforts for the Catholic Mobilizing Network‘s January 2012 e-newsletter:
In 1964, Kentucky Governor, Ned Breathitt, convened a panel of distinguished Kentuckians to study the death penalty and make a recommendation regarding its use. The majority of that panel voted to recommend abolition of the death penalty. Kentucky’s General Assembly did not act on that recommendation and it stayed in place, but went unused, until the Furman ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.
Since its passage Kentucky has executed three men, two of whom volunteered.
Kentucky lived without the death penalty for another four years until the U.S. Supreme Court’s Gregg decision in 1976. In December that year, Governor Julian Carroll (now a State Senator and a supporter of the death penalty) signed a bill passed during a special session reinstating the penalty. Eleven of the 138 General Assembly members voted against that bill.
Between 1976 and the present there have been Kentuckians calling for an end to executions. Those first voices cried out primarily from the urban areas: Louisville, Lexington, Owensboro and the Covington environs. Eventually opponents began to hear about each other and held some preliminary meetings together to get a sense of what to do to rid the state of this barbarous practice.
– February 1, 2012
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's budget cuts would be less drastic if the state abolished the costly and broken death penalty.
Last week the Louisville Courier-Journal published this letter to the editor by KCADP’s coordinator and treasurer, Kaye Gallagher:
Last week, Gov. Steve Beshear released a budget that “requires painful cuts that may well force us to retreat on some core services and that risk jeopardizing progress we’ve made over decades in education.” These cuts affect all Kentuckians no matter how they fit on the economic chart.
One way of saving taxpayer dollars would be to eliminate the death penalty. This risky, unfair and broken form of punishment is more expensive than a sentence of life without parole. Make Kentucky an abolition leader in the South.
– January 30, 2012
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