Ron Paul: Death Penalty Is The Ultimate Corrupt, Big Government Program

OpEd

June 14, 2015

Ron Paul. Photo by David Carlyon, Wikipedia Commons

Nebraska’s legislature recently made headlines whenit ended the state’s death penalty. Many found it odd that a conservatives-dominated legislature would support ending capital punishment, since conservative politicians have traditionally supported the death penalty. However, an increasing number of conservatives are realizing that the death penalty is inconsistent with both fiscal and social conservatism. These conservatives are joining with libertarians and liberals in a growing anti-death penalty coalition.

It is hard to find a more wasteful and inefficient government program than the death penalty. New Hampshire recently spent over $4 million dollars prosecuting just two death penalty cases, while Jasper County in Texas raised property taxes by seven percent in order to pay for one death penalty case! A Duke University study found that replacing North Carolina’s death penalty would save taxpayers approximately $22 million dollars in just two years.

Nebraska repeals the death penalty

Senators Kathy Campbell and Ernie Chambers after voting to repeal the death penalty on Wednesday. Credit Andrew Dickinson for The New York Times

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska on Wednesday became the first conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty, with lawmakers defying their Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, a staunch supporter of capital punishment who had lobbied vigorously against banning it.

After more than two hours of emotional speeches at the Capitol here, the Legislature, by a 30-to-19 vote that cut across party lines, overrode the governor’s veto of a bill repealing the state’s death penalty law. After the repeal measure passed, by just enough votes to overcome the veto, dozens of spectators in the balcony burst into celebration.

Virginia shouldn’t be “a little bit gruesome”

PAT BAGLEY, The Salt Lake Tribune

Posted: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:00 am

The Rev. Gene B. Edmunds Edmunds, a retired Presbyterian minister, representing the Alternatives to the Death Penalty Committee of Plowshare Peace Center.

By the Rev. Gene B. Edmunds

Edmunds, a retired Presbyterian minister, representing the Alternatives to the Death Penalty Committee of Plowshare Peace Center.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert recently signed a law reinstating the firing squad as a means of execution. Even Gov. Herbert has acknowledged that killing someone by firing squad “is a little bit gruesome.”

He believed the law was necessary because Utah, Virginia and the 32 other states where the death penalty is still legal are having trouble obtaining the drugs used for lethal injection from Europe. Use of other drugs has proved disastrous, as in the “botched execution” in Oklahoma that made headlines last year.

Most European countries, and 140 countries worldwide, have already abolished the death penalty. As a result, many European manufacturers object to the use of their drugs by the U.S. in executions. And they are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain after an EU trade embargo in 2010.