Pa. should have death penalty despite Shapiro’s objections
Gov. Josh Shapiro called on state lawmakers Thursday to abolish the death penalty.
Lawmakers should reject that request.
The death penalty should not only remain on the books, but it should be carried out to punish the murderers who have earned it.
I was hopeful that when Shapiro took office last month that he would end the moratorium on executions that was implemented by his predecessor, Gov. Tom
Wolf.
During his time as state attorney general, Shapiro had a frontrow seat to the bloodshed that occurs in Pennsylvania. People are slain — sometimes intentionally, often indiscriminately — on the street, in their homes, where they shop, where they work and even where they worship.
At a news conference Thursday at a Philadelphia church, Shapiro said he used to believe in capital punishment. But his position has evolved and when capital cases came to him as attorney general, he repeatedly found himself refusing to pursue the death penalty.
“When my son asked me why it was OK to kill someone who killed someone else, I couldn’t look him in the eye and answer that question,” Shapiro said.
The answer is simple: because a person who commits a heinous crime deserves to pay the ultimate penalty.
Shapiro, a Democrat, said he will not sign death warrants as governor. Instead, he will grant reprieves.
“The system is fallible and the outcome is irreversible,” he said.
In the past it certainly has been fallible, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. People have been sentenced to death based on dubious jailhouse snitches and prosecutorial misconduct. But Shapiro, and other governors who hold this power, should not be looking back. They should be looking forward.
Many slayings now are captured on video. There is a mountain of evidence. There is no doubt who the killer is. Fears
of what happened decades ago should not influence how current cases are prosecuted and what penalties are pursued.
I’ve raised that point multiple times, most recently in November after the guilty plea by the racist white teenager who hunted and murdered 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo.
Payton Gendron live-streamed himself starting the massacre last May at the Tops supermarket. And before he pulled the trigger about 60 times, he posted a diary and a 47,000-word manifesto online that spelled out his plans and encouraged others to commit racially motivated violence, according to a report by the New York attorney general.
Case closed. Roll out the gallows.
But New York doesn’t have the death penalty, so taxpayers will pay to feed and house Gendron until he dies. He’s only 19, so that could be many decades.
Thankfully, federal charges
remain pending in that case that could carry the death penalty.
Shapiro mentioned Thursday that he had spoken to relatives of a similar atrocity in Pennsylvania, the shooting of 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. It was the deadliest case of antisemitism in American history.
Shapiro, who is Jewish, said he was moved by the courage and grace of those families.
“They told me and they told the world that even after all the pain and anguish, they did not want that killer to be put to death,” Shapiro said. “That has stayed with me.”
He noted that previous governors have studied Pennsylvania’s capital punishment process with an eye toward improving it.
Wolf, a Democrat, imposed his moratorium on executions while waiting for a study commissioned by the state Senate. That study took seven years. The report, issued in 2018, recommended
several changes to ensure the death penalty would be used fairly.
The recommendations included improving defense counsel by creating a statefunded capital defender’s office to represent everyone being tried under the death penalty.
None of those changes were ever implemented and Shapiro said Thursday that such reviews miss the mark.
“We shouldn’t aim to fix this system,” he said. “The commonwealth should not be in the business of putting people to death.”
Supporting Shapiro at his news conference Thursday was state Sen. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia.
“Our criminal justice system is founded on our aspirations to fairness, equity, redemption and restoration,” Saval said.
Wrong. It was founded to mete out punishment to people who break the law.
Shapiro said Pennsylvania should join the 25 states that have
abolished the death penalty or don’t use it.
Pennsylvania hasn’t executed anyone since 1999. There have been three executions since
1976. The death row population is dwindling, as prosecutors are becoming more selective about which killings should be pursued as capital cases.
“At its core, for me, this is a fundamental statement of morality, of what is right and what is wrong, in my humble opinion,” Shapiro said.
It is just his opinion. Others have the opposite opinion, which Shapiro acknowledged Thursday.
That’s why the Legislature should leave the law on the books. If Shapiro doesn’t want to use it, that’s his right. But a future governor hopefully will want to use it.