Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Timothy Head.
In the last two weeks, several major developments relating to the death penalty occurred across multiple states and they had one significant, yet surprising, thing in common: all of the efforts to remove death sentences or reform death penalty procedures were led by conservative Republicans. What was especially remarkable was that these leaders recognized serious errors in individual cases and systemic failings within the justice system and they took decisive, bold action. These actions are part of a growing trend by conservatives who, while not always opposed to capital punishment, are raising concerns about its application, especially about the level of confidence we should have in the systems’ ability to get it right.
Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama commuted the death sentence of Rocky Myers, a man whose case was riddled with doubts about his guilt and other problems, to life in prison without parole. Gov. Ivey, who had never before granted clemency, stated, “I have enough questions about Mr. Myers’ guilt that I cannot move forward with executing him. For example, no murder weapon was found, and no DNA evidence or fingerprints or other physical evidence tied Mr. Myers to the scene of the crime. Although [the victim] Ms. Tucker knew Mr. Myers and let her attacker inside the house, neither she nor Marie Dutton – the only two eyewitnesses to the crime – ever identified Mr. Myers as the assailant.” Myers had originally been sentenced to life in prison by a jury, but a judge overruled the jury’s decision and gave him a death sentence instead, a practice that has since been banned in Alabama.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant death row prisoner Richard Glossip a new trial due to concerns about prosecutorial misconduct in his original trial and the court obliged earlier this month. Dozens of Republican legislators had supported Glossip’s request for a new trial due to concerns that he could be innocent. Republicans have also been moving a bill to temporarily pause executions in the state as a measure to ensure that no innocent people are executed. If passed, the bill would temporarily protect individuals on death row, including Tremane Wood, who is currently awaiting an execution date in Oklahoma despite several problematic factors in his case, including the fact that three out of the 12 jurors who voted to sentence Tremane to death have attested that they did so because they were confused by the jury instructions and erroneously thought the jury had to unanimously agree on the punishment or they wouldn’t be allowed to go home.
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In Georgia, a Republican-authored bill to bring the state’s outlier threshold for establishing intellectual disability in death penalty cases in line with the rest of the country passed unanimously out of the House last week. These days, seeing any issue with such strong bipartisan support is almost unheard of.
Republican lawmakers have also been very vocal in raising concerns about the reliability of several death row convictions in Texas, including in the case of Robert Roberson and Melissa Lucio.
In some ways it should not be surprising that conservative Republicans would be questioning the ability of big government to perform reliably over and over again and pointing out government inefficiencies related to capital punishment. But that has not always been the case.
However, a new crop of conservative leaders is emerging and the issue is popping up in unlikely places, such as at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference and in legislatures across the country. They are shining a light on what many consider a critical problem in America today: the erosion of trust in our justice system. If there is one function that our government simply cannot afford to get wrong it is in wielding the ultimate government power: arresting, charging, trying, convicting, imprisoning, and ultimately executing an American citizen. We've learned a lot about the death penalty in the last 40 years. Tragically, innocent people are sentenced to die far more often than any of us should be comfortable with. Since 1976, 200 people have been exonerated from death row nationally. Meaning 200 times the government almost got it wrong, and this does not take into account those cases we may not be aware of. Too often, innocent people are being mired in an imprecise system where individuals, like Glossip or Myers, can and do fall through the cracks. This is a result of the ineptness and inefficiencies of government at the highest level and it is causing elected officials across America to investigate why this continues to occur at such an alarming rate.
As conservatives who are focused on right-sizing the scope, authority, and expense of government while improving its accuracy, we are heartened to see leaders like Governor Ivey in Alabama and Attorney General Drummond in Oklahoma take these critical steps to ensure the integrity of our system and safeguard innocent lives. We hope more leaders follow in their footsteps and demonstrate similar courage and conviction.
Demetrius Minor is National Manager of Conservatives Concerned. Timothy Head is President and CEO of Unify.US (learn more at www.unifyus.us) and former executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition.
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