Jack Markell hasn’t decided if he’ll support the death penalty repeal, which should be baffling considering the time he spent serving on Delaware’s Board of Pardons as state treasurer. Yes, Delaware is the last state to kill someone by hanging. You snicker, but it was as recently as 1996 when the state killed convicted murder Billy Bailey by hanging him from wooden gallows built in Smyrna. Meanwhile, progressive-in-almost-every-other-way Delaware clings to its 18th century form of justice, aligning itself with such bastions of human rights as Saudi Arabia, Iran and China. Governor Tom Wolf issues a moratorium on the death penalty, calling it “a flawed system” that has proven itself to be “ineffective, unjust and expensive.” Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013 and commuted the sentences of the inmates that remained on death row. Our neighbors have sensibly begun to move away from this arcane form of punishment. It was also the only evidence that connected her to the murder. In that case, Milk was convicted to die after a Phoenix police detective claimed she confessed to the plot, even though there was no witness or recording of her confession. Just this week, Arizona resident Debra Milk was cleared of conspiring to murder her 4-year-old son after spending 22 years on death row. Since 1973, over 130 innocent people have been released from death row due to evidence of wrongful convictions. That’s the largest issue I have with the death penalty, and frankly it should be enough to get the policy banned in every state in this country. However, what I’ve read would surely waver my resolve if I were seeking to sentence him to death. I don’t know if Wright robbed the Hi-Way Inn that night and killed clerk Phillip Siefert. After spending over 20 years in prison, Wright was freed from Delaware’s death row after a Superior Court judge threw out the videotape confession (given when he was 18-years-old, extremely sleep deprived and under the influence of heroin) that single-handedly convicted him of the 1991 killing of a liquor store clerk.ĭespite the fact there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting and the gun was never found, Wright was convicted and sentenced to death, largely due to the fact that critical evidence about another robbery on the same night of the murder was withheld during his trial. It doesn’t act as a deterrent to crime, it costs more than simply putting a criminal in jail for life without parole, it overwhelmingly targets poor defendants and occasionally, an innocent person is murdered by the state. We’ve known for years that there is not a single positive aspect that makes the death penalty a good policy decision. Because, as I’m sure you already know, the life of a teacher or a store clerk isn’t as important as the life of a cop. Pete Schwartzkopf, who essentially controls the fate of the bill, has signaled the only way he would support the repeal of the death penalty is if it were amended to exclude the killers of police and correctional officers. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsorĪs usual, Peterson and her allies are up against hard opposition from politicians who, despite all the evidence of the death penalty as a cruel and failed policy, are simply afraid of seeming weak on crime.
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