Death penalty

Regarding “Support for death penalty in U.S. declining” (HoustonChronicle.com, Oct. 29), death penalty abolition is becoming a non-partisan issue. Recently, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty released a report documenting increased support from Republican legislators. The report finds that by 2017, Republicans represent more than 31 percent of death penalty repeal bill sponsors, compared to less than 10 percent in 2007.

According to the latest Gallup poll, national support for the death penalty is at its lowest level in 45 years. The death penalty continues to fall out of favor for many reasons. With the option of a sentence of life in prison without parole, both prosecutors and jurors are now looking more critically at the significant burdens the death penalty puts on a county and on the families affected by capital murder.

Since 2015, prosecutors in Texas have sought death in sixteen cases, resulting in eight new death sentences. Harris County, once an outlier for its overzealous use of the death penalty, is now reflecting both state and national trends. It’s been more than three years since someone was sent to death row from Harris County.

With Republicans, Democrats, Americans and Texans all losing faith in this faulty and arbitrary practice, it is time to put an end to the death penalty. Stacey Morgan, Houston