Death penalty repeal efforts flaming out in red states

When Nebraska last year became the first red state in 40 years to abolish the death penalty, it offered a glimmer of hope for repeal supporters that the national momentum against capital punishment was taking hold in Republican-led states.

But the repeal in the Cornhusker State has yet to be duplicated elsewhere despite similar efforts in several conservative states this year. Of repeal legislation proposed in nine states, at least six already have sputtered out.

In Utah last week, lawmakers were unable to garner enough votes to enact a capital punishment repeal bill before the end of the regular legislative session.

“Given the pressure of the last night, the votes I needed to swing, I didn’t see them swinging,” Utah state Sen. Steve Urquhart, the bill’s sponsor, told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Legislative efforts to ban the death penalty also have failed this year in Wyoming, Kentucky, South Dakota, New Hampshire and Delaware. Even the repeal success in Nebraska, the seventh state to abolish capital punishment since 2007, could be short-lived. The state is set to vote on a referendum that could reinstate the death penalty in November.

But those who have lobbied against capital punishment said this year has been full of small but symbolic victories.

“In Kentucky, it was the first time an abolition bill has gotten a hearing since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976,” said the Rev. Patrick Delahanty, chairman of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. “It’s major progress. There are more people interested in the state than I’ve ever seen before.”

The U.S. Supreme Court effectively banned capital punishment in 1972 and reinstated it in 1976.

Kentucky’s repeal bill was sponsored by a Republican lawmaker, as were efforts in Missouri and Kansas, where legislation has not been rejected this year but seems unlikely to pass.

Repeal efforts in states that have garnered bipartisan support seem best poised to gain the most ground, said Richard Dieter, senior program director at the Death Penalty Information Center.

“A recent convert joining the force seems to be the missing ingredient,” Mr. Dieter said. “Otherwise, it can just be in limbo. No executions, but no getting rid of it either.”

Marc Hyden, the national advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said a record number of conservatives have been sponsoring legislation to abolish capital punishment in recent years.

“There is a strong conservative case against the death penalty,” Mr. Hyden said. “In these other states, I think they are starting to be more critical of the death penalty because they are looking at what it is supposed to do in theory and what it does in practice.”

Use of the death penalty has fallen precipitously in recent years.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have banned executions. In 2015, six states carried out a total of 28 executions, the lowest number since 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Use of capital punishment has declined as views on it have changed. Politicians have been more willing to reconsider abolishment of the death penalty as controversy has arisen over potential executions of the wrongly convicted as well as the drugs used in lethal injections.

“There used to be the belief that if you voted against the death penalty, you were voting against yourself,” Mr. Dieter said. “You were going to lose the elections.”

But as executions have become more rare, voters aren’t as concerned with an elected leader’s stance on the issue, he said.

In additional to concern over how executions are carried out, conservatives also have responded to considerations about the cost of death sentence appeals and the toll on victims’ family members, who remain involved throughout the lengthy process, Mr. Delahanty said.

Despite the enthusiasm that small victories have inspired, Mr. Dieter said, repeal efforts often stretch for years before attaining success.

“It is proceeding slowly, but it hasn’t reached that snowball effect,” he said of the recent repeal effort. “It’s going to take a number of years in each state.”