Gov. Josh Shapiro Thursday boldly called on legislators to abolish Pennsylvania’s costly, ineffective and immoral death penalty. In urging legislators to act, an unprecedented move, Shapiro showed some sorely needed leadership from the governor’s office.
Unless Shapiro engages the legislature, the death-penalty statute will endure. He needs to take the lead in persuading the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate to approve bills that would repeal it. Former Gov. Tom Wolf refused to do that.
In making his statement a month after his inauguration, Shapiro signaled that getting state government out of the business of killing people will be a priority. He appears willing to spend some political capital on a fundamentally moral issue. That’s encouraging, but to succeed, Shapiro will have to lobby legislators and address the issue in public, perhaps the biggest test yet of his political skills and acumen.
Shapiro has a model to guide him: Former Gov. Ralph Northam led the fight to abolish the death penalty in Virginia. In 2021, it became the first Southern state, and the 23rd in the nation, to abolish the death penalty.
Opposing the death penalty still carries some political risks, but they’re not overwhelming. Since 2009, seven states have abolished the death penalty.
In remarks at Mosaic Community Church in Philadelphia, Shapiro, a former death penalty supporter, said abolishing it was morally right. He cited the possibility of irrevocable mistakes. Since 1973, at least 185 prisoners on death row, including 10 from Pennsylvania, have been exonerated.
Pennsylvania’s death row, with about 100 prisoners, is one of the nation’s largest. More than half of the prisoners are Black, in a state in which African Americans make up only 12% of the population.
Other than exacting revenge, a notion with no place in a modern criminal justice system, there are no rational arguments for the death penalty.
No evidence shows it deters crime, and the death penalty is extremely costly. Even with the moratorium on executions, prosecutors continue to try to convict people under the statute.
Most capital convictions are overturned on appeal for mandatory life sentences. Since 1976, Pennsylvania has sentenced more than 400 prisoners to death, resulting in only three executions.
Securing death penalty convictions and defending them on appeal have cost the state about $1 billion since 1976, reported former Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale. For even the most ardent death penalty supporter, spending $1 billion for three executions is, to put it crudely, a poor return on investment.
Pennsylvania has not executed a prisoner since 1999. As a death penalty state, however, it retains a shameful moral stain.
The moratorium on executions that started in 2015 will continue under Shapiro, who will sign no execution warrants.
For Shapiro, the work has only begun. Still, he should be applauded for taking a small but significant step toward removing this barbaric practice permanently from Pennsylvania.
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