Ghost in the death penalty debate? You bet …

April 26, 2012 By

To understand this post, you will need to see the photo that accompanied the USA Today news feature that ran under an A1 headline stating: “Shifts detected in support for death penalty.”

I cannot show GetReligion readers that Associated Press photo, obviously, because of copyright issues.

Thus, click here and go see the photo (and read the story while you are at it).

OK, you’re back? We can proceed.

Meanwhile, the cutline for that photo offers this helpful info:

Connecticut religious leaders who oppose the death penalty stop for a prayer during a march to the state Capitol in Hartford on April 3.

If you follow death-penalty debates closely (as I do, since I am one of those pro-life Democrat fanatics), you will not be surprised to know that there is a strong religious element to this story. There are religious liberals who oppose the death penalty and there are religious conservatives in this movement, too. It’s very hard to avoid the faith content in this debate.

In terms of the journalistic realities, I don’t think that I have ever interviewed a conservative or a moderate citizen who opposed the death penalty who did not root her or his stance, in large part, in religious convictions. If, as the USA Today headline states, significant numbers of Americans have changed their beliefs on this issue — toward an anti-death-penalty stance — it is highly likely that, for many of those folks, religion has played a role in the shift.

The anti-death penalty camp already has the Mennonites and lots of Catholics. The question is whether there are more Catholics, Jewish conservatives, evangelicals, Orthodox Christians and others gathered in those candlelight prayer vigils.

So how is this reflected in that USA Today story, the one with the photo of (yet another) prayer vigil for the cause?

Here’s a representative sample:

Capital punishment proponents say the general decline in death sentences and executions in recent years is merely a reflection of the sustained drop in violent crime, but some lawmakers and legal analysts say the numbers underscore a growing wariness of wrongful convictions.

In Texas, Dallas County alone has uncovered 30 wrongful convictions since 2001, the most of any county in the country. Former Texas governor Mark White, a Democrat, said he continues to support the death penalty “only in a select number of cases,” yet he says he believes that a “national reassessment” is now warranted given the stream of recent exonerations.

“I have been a proponent of the death penalty, but convicting people who didn’t commit the crime has to stop,” White said.

Amen. But, but, but …

“There is an inherent unfairness in the system,” said Former Los Angeles County district attorney Gil Garcetti, a Democrat. He added that he was “especially troubled” by mounting numbers of wrongful convictions.

A recent convert to the California anti-death-penalty campaign, Garcetti said the current system has become “obscenely expensive” and forces victims to often wait years for death row appeals to run their course. In the past 34 years in California, just 13 people have been executed as part of a system that costs $184 million per year to maintain.

“Replacing capital punishment will give victims legal finality,” Garcetti said.

In other words, there is no religious angle in the USA Today story. None at all.

The religion angle is only in the photo and, of course, in the subject material itself, if one is actually attempting to cover this issue in the United States of America. Politics and law are part of this story, OF COURSE. But so are religious convictions, on both sides of the debate.

We call that a ghost, around here.

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Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Journalism, Mainline, Politics, Social Issues
About TMatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

  • Julia

    Interesting. The religious dimension of the issue is all over the comments box even though not mentioned in the article.

  • Mike O.

    I disagree that there is a ghost, and I think the story cited is exactly right. Through things like increased use of DNA testing to definitively show people being wrongly convicted, the public is taking notice. Then you have organizations like The Innocence Project getting the word out. Another major factor is the internet news machine bringing to light such cases to a national audience. Take Radley Balko who did a great deal of investigation on his Agitator blog on the Cory Maye case.

    Yes, many of the people opposed to the death penalty do so for religious reasons. But we would need some evidence that the increase in opposition, which is what the story was about, was due to religious reasons and not due to the factors I mentioned above.

    As I’ve said before, sometimes what GR sees as ghosts are really mirages.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    MIKE O:

    I am not arguing against the themes in the story. Clearly these tech advances, etc., are affecting the debate.

    But look at THE COMMENTS on that piece? In this country, if a wide range of people are changing their minds on this topic, then faith is involved for many of them.

  • http://!)! Passing By

    So a cadre of religious leaders march on the state capitol in opposition to the death penalty, and USA Today found not a single voice to warn of an impending theocracy. Fascinating.

  • sari

    Also glaring, the only interviews identified by party affiliation were Democrats.

    Mike O makes a good point. Has the percentage of self-labeled religious people who oppose the death penalty increased, or is the shift more reflective of pragmatic rather than ethical-moral concerns? The reporter should have at least explored the religious aspect to see if the religious, particularly in Texas, have shifted sides. That the R.C.C. opposed the death penalty is not news; a shift among texas fundamentalists and evangelicals would be.

  • Mike O.

    tmatt, I went over those comments. At this time there are 46 comments on that article. There are three initial comments which brought up religion and a total of six replies to those comments. None of them say that they’ve made a turnaround in their opinion due to religion.

    There are also two comments by two men who independantly came up with the idea of putting criminals on an island without guards, letting them rot forever in an “Escape From New York” scenario. Would you have wanted the author of this article to interview John Carpenter?

    I am not saying that faith doesn’t and hasn’t entered into the death penalty debate. But what religious change in recent years would suggest that religion is the driving force in the public’s shift in opinion?

    In fact, I stumbled on this Pew Forum survey from 2010 which shows that among whites that evangelicals show the largest percentage of support for the death penalty, while the smallest comes from Catholics. With the continued shift of Catholics to mainline and evangelical churches, I would expect the support of the death penalty among the religious to stay the same or have a slight uptick. That is, unless some church or religious organization has shifted its position on the death penalty. If you can show me such a case that could conceivably affect polls on the death penalty, then I’ll agree the article should have mentioned it.

  • Julia

    The border between religious reasoning and pragmatism often blurs.

    If it is shown that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime, that makes it less fair/ethical in addition to not working.
    Same for the use of the death penalty to coerce false confessions from possibly innocent people.

    If it is shown that too many innocent people are being executed, surely justice and ethics underlie not wanting to punish presumed-guilty people in a way that cannot be remedied if later facts prove them innocent.

    I don’t think it’s so much that “my church has declared thus and such”, as it is re-thinking the historical justification for the death penalty in the face of DNA now exonerating people right and left.

    John Paul II’s reasoning: In a time or place when it was/is difficult to incarcerate people for very long due to logistics, capital punishment might be necessary to protect the public from violent people. Today, life sentences are possible in most circumstances and such harsh measure are no longer justified. Rational reasons, but also concern for justice and proportionality, which are religious ideas, too.

    BTW At this point, the powers that be in the Catholic Church are urging an end to capital punishment, but it has not yet become an article of faith that must be held by all. For example, I don’t think a juror who votes for capital punishment is thought to be committing a grave sin.

  • Jerry

    I don’t think that I have ever interviewed a conservative or a moderate citizen who opposed the death penalty who did not root her or his stance, in large part, in religious convictions.

    What about liberals, including religious liberals, who oppose the death penalty? And were you referring to people who support a conservative view of religion or political conservatives?

    Seriously there is a hole in the story: an information hole. Who is shifting positions on the death penalty and why are they shifting positions? Someone who has religious or ethical objections to the death penalty will use the errors that are uncovered as further reasons to oppose capital punishment. But I want to know why people switched from being in favor to being opposed.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    MIKE O:

    Why do you keep turning my statement that religion is AN influence in these debates into THE influence? Curious.

    JERRY:

    My post notes that, on the religious left, people tend to be anti-death penalty (and all too often pro-abortion rights, go figure). Thus, all I was saying was that for momentum to increase toward an anti-death penalty stance, in this land of ours, it would have to involve moderates and conservatives. That was my point. Read the post again.

    TO ALL:

    As to where I am coming from on THE ISSUE, as opposed to the journalism question in the post, let’s just say that a system in which the state executes the innocent (and mistakes will always be made, especially when the poor are in the system and race is involved) cannot be justified. I am not willing to embrace one our of 10 being unjustly killed, or whatever the percentage is found to be in hard research. It is one thing to mistakenly jail someone. It is something else to use the power of the state to kill them.

  • sari

    The border between religious reasoning and pragmatism often blurs.

    Yes, it does, Julia. But we should be careful not equate people with ethical-moral concerns with those who purport to be religious. Lots of atheists, apatheists and liberals subscribe to high moral standards while many self-labeled religious do not practice what they preach.

    Could the decline in religious observance have caused an uptick in protests against the death penalty? That would be an interesting perspective for a journalist to explore.

  • Mike O.

    Why do you keep turning my statement that religion is AN influence in these debates into THE influence? Curious.

    Read again. I’m saying that there is not any evidence that religion is in any way, shape, or form related to the recent change in attitudes against the death penalty. Despite the article showing several non-religious reasons why this change may have occurred, and my showing several such reasons, you still think there is a religious factor.

    As you’ve said a cardinal sin on GR is to state something without a link to back it up. Show me an article, or a study, or a poll. Link to something that gives a religious reason why this recent change in attitude has occurred. Don’t just assume there’s a factor and complain of “ghosts”.

  • sari

    tmatt,
    A third class of people exists: those who oppose the death penalty in principle but recognize that a small subset of people require the death penalty, not as a deterrent but for the safety of society. Those people’s views are almost never heard.

  • http://www.tmatt.net tmatt

    MIKE O:

    You need a poll to establish the existence of Roman Catholics and moderate to progressive evangelicals?

    I agree with all of the reasons cited in the article, as factors. I simply think the people in the photo WITH THE ARTICLE are a factor too.

  • sari

    tmatt,
    I think Mike O is asking for data that demonstrates shifts in the attitudes of those who formerly believed in the death penalty. The R.C.C. has been anti-death penalty for a long time. No new news there. Does hard data exist in the form of surveys or interviews to demonstrate that moderate and progressive evangelicals have experienced a recent change of heart, or have they been anti-death penalty all along? How about for more conservative evangelicals?

  • Mike O.

    You need a poll to establish the existence of Roman Catholics and moderate to progressive evangelicals?

    No, but I felt it was appropriate to cite my source and also to note the extent of the disparity (which, honestly, I thought would be larger).

    The photo with the article shows religious people opposed to the death penalty. But are they a factor in the CHANGE of attitudes stated in the article. I say no, and that people like those in the photo have consistently been against the death penalty. Present to me something that shows a religious origin for this change. Not the people that have a history of this stance, but those who previously were for death penalty, in the last few years have changed their minds, and have a religious reason why.

  • Julia

    Sari said:

    But we should be careful not equate people with ethical-moral concerns with those who purport to be religious. Lots of atheists, apatheists and liberals subscribe to high moral standards while many self-labeled religious do not practice what they preach.

    What I was getting at was that ethical moral concerns can be shared by those who purport to be religious and those who aren’t. Objections to the death penalty can be similarly-grounded for atheists and religious people.

    Similar to the abolitionists motives which weren’t exclusively religious. The religious folks were the driving force; however, they had many allies who were not coming from a religious background at all but shared the principle that people should not be owned.

  • http://authenticbioethics.blogspot.com AuthenticBioethics

    A subtle point about the Catholic Church’s position on the death penalty. It recognizes the right of civil authorities to have recourse to the death penalty in a general sense, but also holds that its use should be far more limited than what it is, for the reasons that Julia noted above. It is a matter of debate in the Church if it should be outlawed altogether. I think JP-II’s remarks are ordered to transforming culture such that we are not so preoccupied with death and instead foster life, even among criminals; in such a culture, the death penalty would simply not be used regardless of whether or not it was legal.

    As far as the article goes, if the main photo is religious leaders in opposition to the death penalty, then it only makes sense to at least mention the religious angle. As the debate in the Catholic Church shows, there is a wide spectrum of religious basis for opposing the death penalty. Pragmatism is not very compelling, actually. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to expand the use of the death penalty than to keep large numbers of people jailed? I agree that it is impractical to keep a little-used capital punishment system in place. But isn’t it more ipractical to execute large numbers of criminals than house and feed them? I do NOT advocate capital punishment for those reasons, I’m just pointing out that pragmatism only goes so far in explaining people’s position on the matter. If religious leaders gather to oppose it, one ought to say why.

  • sari

    Pragmatism is not very compelling, actually. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to expand the use of the death penalty than to keep large numbers of people jailed?

    Authentic Bio–
    That is part of the gist of the article. The death penalty has always been presumed to be the less expensive and more practical option, but it’s often not the case, when one considers the number of appeals, the average length of incarceration before the sentence is carried out (if ever), and the additional security costs. Death row inmates later exonerated of their crimes add an additional cost: damages. So, while compelling reasons on the ethical-moral front argue against the death penalty, pragmatic concerns are still very much at play.

  • http://authenticbioethics.blogspot.com AuthenticBioethics

    Sari, yes I recognize those limitations and I agree with you. I guess I was speaking in the abstract. Killing convicts is cheaper than housing them; housing them indefinitely before killing them (if ever) may not be because then society pays for both rather than one or the other. But pragmatism might debate as to where the problem is. Maybe, one could argue (not I), the problem is the time lag between sentencing and execution and in the notion that appeals are automatic even if they have no real legal merit, and what is needed to correct the system is executions at dawn on the day following sentencing. That would not be very politically correct these days. I raise it only to point out the limitation of pragmatism alone being behind the push against capital punishment.

    So if anything, I would expand my remarks to say that if pragmatism is the real reason, then there are probably more sides to the debate than what were presented in the USAToday article. Also, the article notes 61% of Americans still support the death penalty, but not a single one of those majority voices were heard in the article.

    I actually have a question about the researching finding that the death penalty lacks a deterrent effect. Could it be that the time lag between sentencing and executions have something to do with that? Maybe the death penalty is seen as an empty threat instead of a real one, and if it were used more often and more quickly it would have more deterrent effect. I am NOT advocating anything here. I am just playing devil’s advocate and pointing out some holes in the article. Overall, the article seems to be advancing a position rather than reporting a phenomenon.

  • Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    As sari said above, there are a lot of people’s views–based on their Christian faith on this overall subject– that are ignored or uncovered in the media. One is that of those who are concerned about the lives of those who are prison guards and are expected to risk their lives to keep murderers incarcerated as well as those prisoners in jail for much lesser crimes, but wind up murdered in jail.
    Both these groups of people deserve coverage and the concern of Christians, but there is almost nothing out there compared to the coverage the anti-cap punishment movement among religious people receives.

  • sari

    Authentic Bio,

    You ask a lot of good questions and raise some interesting points, but I feel like some of them are more appropriate to an ethics seminar or journal than to a newspaper article, especially this one.

    Maybe the death penalty is seen as an empty threat instead of a real one, and if it were used more often and more quickly it would have more deterrent effect.

    Maybe. There is a certain subset of the population for whom deterrents are irrelevant. Ask anyone who works with ED children. Some are disturbed due to trauma, but many are simply born that way, cared for by loving parents, and no amount of remediation will make a difference. I am not, btw, advocating for or against, just stating that some people are unreachable for reasons we don’t yet fully understand.

    Deacon John–I had in mind the guards and inmates, but, more than anything, the potential for escape should the system fail.