In an op-ed for The Roanoke Times, Batten students Sean Bielawski (MPP ’21) and Henry Frost (MBA/MPP ’21) outline why the Commonwealth should set an example for the South by officially doing away with capital punishment.
In the upcoming legislative session, Virginia can build a bipartisan cultural bridge and set an example for the South by officially and completely abolishing the death penalty.
In the last 20 years, prosecutors, juries, judges, politicians, and citizens from both sides of the aisle have decided that the death penalty is the wrong choice for the commonwealth, and use of the death penalty has continuously dwindled to the point of being obsolete.
Executions are increasingly rare in Virginia, with five executions in the last 10 years and only two people currently sitting on death row. Still, this mostly dormant practice can be reactivated at any time as long as it remains on the books.
To further emphasize why the commonwealth should abolish the death penalty, we could lay out the arguments various groups have made for abolition over the last few decades.
We could argue that the death penalty is ineffective, pointing out that there is no evidence the death penalty deters crimes, that social science research has debunked the deterrent effect and that nearly 90% of criminologists agree.
Or we could point out it is unjust. The death penalty has been applied in a wildly discriminatory fashion, with Black Americans executed at far greater rates than white Americans despite no connection to the actual rate of criminal activity. Indeed, 96% of reviews have found evidence of racial discrimination. Furthermore, hundreds of Americans have been found innocent while on death row or even after their deaths, showing the inherent risk of killing innocent people that comes when you put life and death decisions like capital punishment in the government’s hands.
