Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Thursday that he will not sign any execution warrants while in office and called on the state legislature to abolish the death penalty.
“I will not issue any execution warrants during my term as governor. When an execution warrant comes to my desk, I will sign a reprieve each and every time,” the Democratic governor said at the Mosaic Community Church in West Philadelphia, adding that the first execution warrant since he was sworn in crossed his desk last week.
“The Commonwealth shouldn’t be in the business of putting people to death. Period. I believe that in my heart. This is a fundamental statement of morality. Of what’s right and wrong.”
Shapiro made his comments alongside state legislators, community activists and criminal justice advocates, noting that his view on capital punishment had evolved over the years.
While serving as the state’s attorney general, Shapiro indicated support for the death penalty in the case of Robert Bowers, the suspected gunman in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 people dead. Bowers’ federal trial is scheduled to start in April.
Shapiro on Thursday said that after taking a close look at the criminal justice system as the state’s former chief law enforcement officer, he came to the realization that “the system is fallible, and the outcome is irreversible.”
Pennsylvania is one of 27 states that allows the death penalty. The state has 101 inmates on death row — all men — but hasn’t had an execution in 24 years.
Before the death penalty’s reinstatement in Pennsylvania in 1976, the state had executed 1,040 people, the third highest number of any state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an organization which tracks executions across the country.
Three executions have taken place since 1995, with two in May and August of that year, and a third in July 1999, according to data from the state’s Department of Corrections. All three of these executions took place under Republican Gov. Tom Ridge.
Shapiro’s announcement follows a series of Democratic leaders voicing opposition to the death penalty, including from his predecessor, former Gov. Tom Wolf, who had enacted a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania in 2015.
In December, outgoing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown commuted the sentences of the 17 people on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and similarly referred to the practice as “immoral.”
At the legislature level, Virginia is the most recent state to legislatively abolish the death penalty. In 2021, lawmakers instead opted for a sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility for parole, data from the National Conference of State Legislatures shows.
Abolishing the death penalty in the Pennsylvania would be a heavy lift under divided government. Republicans control the state Senate, while Democrats control the House and the governor’s mansion.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
