The reasons why these Kentucky citizens want to abolish the death penalty are as diverse as their backgrounds.
Sister Chris Beckett, SCN
For over 35 years I have been active in prison issues and ministries, including my years of service as a volunteer chaplain on Kentucky’s death row. As I walked with those on death row, their families, and met victims, my conviction that the death penalty is immoral only increased.
Now as an administrator in a Catholic all-girls high school in Louisville I am asked to speak and share on the prison system and the death penalty with our students and those at other high schools. I will work untiringly for the abolition of the death penalty in this state, our country, and the world.
Sheriall Cunningham
The death penalty balances lives on the fulcrum of human error. It is immoral to make ending another’s life part of a job description.
Pat Delahanty
The use of the death penalty by the state is an action permitted only because we have agreed to its use. We give the state permission to kill in our names. When I ask, “When may I kill?” I find no answer to justify the killing that takes place by the state. I believe we respect human life by standing against a policy that allows the killing of another person. I don’t want that blood on my hands. So I work to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky.
Zach Everson
Abolishing the death penalty is a no-brainer. It doesn’t deter crime. It costs more than life in prison without parole. It’s not applied fairly. Unlike other sentences, if carried out, it can’t be overturned if the legal system makes a mistake. And there’s no greater example of big government.
Kaye Gallagher
The death penalty can never be applied fairly. Most convicted of a capital crime do not have the resources for a private lawyer and end up getting death. There is a statement: “If you don’t have the capital, you are going to get the punishment” that seems to be true.
Ben Griffith
My brother was murdered in 1986 by a man who randomly killed four people one afternoon. The murderer was executed in 1997, and that was when I fully realized that the death penalty represented the worst of humanity. It also marked the beginning of my active involvement in the movement to abolish it.
Maria Hines
All killing is wrong, whether it is a case of one individual killing another or the government killing one of its citizens. It was for this reason that in 1998 I publicly opposed the execution of the man who killed my brother Jerry Hines, a Virginia state trooper. I also visited the man who killed him in prison before his execution and told him of my forgiveness.
This only reinforced my belief that when we have forgiven, we have no need to kill. As a result, I have strengthened my resolve to help abolish the death penalty by my work with the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation.
Mark Meade
The death penalty was not on my radar for most of my life. When my interests in faith and social justice came together, I took another look. All I had to do was scratch the surface to realize the many disturbing problems with the death penalty and knew I had to act.
Raphael Schweri
My brother-in-law was a state trooper shot and killed in the line of duty. I oppose the death penalty because it is cold-blooded revenge killing of a person under our control. I have experienced too many men change for the better or be declared innocent after long terms on death row.
Don Vish
My opposition to the death penalty is based on the uncivilized nature of a state-sanctioned, ritual execution of another human being by state employees in the name of all.
Randall Wheeler
When the state carries out an execution, it is a premeditated killing done in our names. But the life of every person is precious to me and I want no part of this. The response to the taking of one life should never be the taking of another in this way because it diminishes us all.
Resorting to violence by killing someone who is likely to be mentally ill or who was subjected to a life of abuse and neglect is an admission of society’s failure to solve problems with positive acts. I work to abolish the death penalty because I hope to live in a society that fosters forgiveness and compassion rather than revenge and hatred.
Mary Ellen Wiederwohl
The ultimate measure of a civil society is how it treats the least among us. A society that collectively kills through the death penalty reduces itself and every citizen member by this action. Life without parole is a far greater penalty to those who commit heinous crimes.
Why abolish the death penalty in Kentucky?