IMAGE: CNS photo/Jed DeKalb, courtesy State of Tennessee
By Theresa Laurence
NASHVILLE,
Tenn. (CNS) — Bishops J. Mark Spalding of Nashville, Richard F. Stika of
Knoxville and Martin D. Holley of Memphis have written to Gov. Bill Haslam urging
him to “use your authority as governor to put an end to the fast-track
executions planned” in the state of Tennessee in the upcoming months.
“It
is within your power to establish your legacy as a governor of Tennessee who
did not preside over an execution on your watch,” the state’s three Catholic
bishops wrote.
The
last person to be put to death by lethal injection in Tennessee was Cecil
Johnson in 2009, when Phil Bredesen was governor. The state has carried out a
total of six executions since 1976, five of those during Bredesen’s tenure.
In
Tennessee, the governor has sole authority to grant clemency to death-row
inmates.
There
are currently 62 men and one woman on Tennessee’s death row.
The
next man scheduled to be executed by the state is Billy Ray Irick Aug. 9. Irick,
59, who has a history of serious mental illness, was convicted in 1986 of the
rape and murder of a 7-year-old Knox County girl named Paula Dyer, and has been
on death row for more than three decades.
In
their letter to Haslam, the bishops called for mercy, including for those who
have committed terrible crimes. “We join with many other religious
denominations in firm opposition to the execution of even those convicted of
heinous crimes,” they wrote.
The
bishops thanked Haslam for meeting with them in the past, and for his
willingness to learn more about the Catholic Church’s opposition to capital
punishment and the foundations of that teaching.
In
their letter, the bishops recalled the story of St. John Paul II’s visit to St.
Louis in 1999, when he called for an end to the death penalty as both cruel and
unnecessary. The pope said, “It is simply not necessary as the only means to
protect society while still providing a just punishment for those who break
civil laws,” the bishops wrote in their letter. “Rather than serving as a path
to justice, the death penalty contributes to the growing disrespect for human
life.”
The
bishops’ letter to the governor comes at the same time that a trial begins over
Tennessee’s new lethal injection protocol. More than 30 death-row inmates filed
suit against the state, contending that the new three-drug combination — midazolam,
vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride — used in the lethal-injection
protocol amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
Tennessee
has not used this three-drug cocktail to carry out an execution before, but
similar or identical drug combinations were used in botched executions in other
states, according to the death-row inmates’ attorneys.
The
lethal-injection drug trial began July 9. With that underway and Irick’s
execution date set for Aug. 9, the state’s capital punishment system is facing
renewed scrutiny. The state’s Catholic bishops are not the only ones voicing
their opposition to it.
The
national organization Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty earlier
this month named Nashville resident Hannah Cox its new national manager and is expanding
its coalition of conservative lawmakers and constituents who are “questioning
whether capital punishment is consistent with conservative principles and
values due to the system’s inefficiency, inequity and inaccuracy.”
Cox,
formerly with the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a free-market think tank, said in
a statement, “Ending the death penalty aligns perfectly with my conservative
beliefs because it eliminates the risk of executing innocent people, reduces
costs to taxpayers, and is consistent with valuing life.”
Three
men have been released from Tennessee’s death row in recent years after they
were proven innocent. Paul House, who was exonerated by DNA evidence after
spending 22 years on death row, has written an open petition to ask the state
not to pursue Irick’s execution or any execution, noting the risk of executing
an innocent person.
In
June, the American Bar Association released a study titled “Potential
Cost-Savings of a Severe Mental Illness Exclusion from the Death Penalty: An
Analysis of Tennessee Data,” which noted that the state could save an estimated
$1.4 million to $1.8 million per year by adopting a ban on capital punishment
for defendants with severe mental illness.
The
report stated that if defendants with severe mental illness were excluded from
the death penalty, this “could result in cost savings because a subset of
individuals could face expensive capital prosecutions and decades of appeals
would become ineligible” for capital punishment.
–
– –
Laurence
is a staff writer for the Tennessee Register, newspaper of the Diocese of
Nashville.
– – –
Copyright © 2018 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.
