(Please note: Not all messages are appropriate in every circumstance or with every audience.
This is meant to serve as a general guide on messaging, and is not specific to any one
campaign or audience. Please seek additional guidance about which messages are best suited
to your campaign. In most cases a much narrower, tailored set of messages will be more
appropriate.)
Message Areas:
1. Ending the death penalty is essential to advancing criminal justice reform
2. There is growing momentum against the death penalty
3. The death penalty is deeply flawed
1. Ending the Death Penalty is Essential to Reforming the Criminal Justice System / The
Death Penalty is a Major Barrier to Lasting Comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform
(BARRIER TO CJ REFORM)
Possible audiences: CJ allies, CJ funders, CJ reporters, reform-minded lawmakers or district
attorneys
e The racial bias that plagues our criminal punishment system and perpetuates mass
incarceration cannot be eliminated without addressing the role of the death penalty.
e The death penalty is a major barrier to lasting comprehensive criminal justice reform.
e Race continues to have a significant influence on who is condemned to die in this country
(both the race of the victim and of the offender).
e The high-profile nature of the death penalty fuels racist narratives about violence and justice.
Even as criminal justice reformers are making progress in non-violent and juvenile cases,
significant sentencing reform will continue to be thwarted by the public’s fear of crime,
perceptions of black dangerousness, and the thirst for vengeance that the death penalty infuses
into public consciousness unless we address the role that capital punishment plays.
e The death penalty is deeply rooted in a legacy of racial oppression and terror. We can
trace a direct line from the horror of lynching to today's use of the death penalty. Sadly, race
continues to play a role in determining who lives and dies (both the race of the victim and of the
offender).
e The death penalty is disproportionately used to punish the most vulnerable people in society,
including people with severe mental illnesses, intellectual disabilities, brain injuries, histories of
serious childhood trauma and abuse, and young people. (72% of the people executed in 2018
had severe mental illness, intellectual disability, brain injury, and/or chronic childhood trauma
and abuse. Approximately 1 in 4 were age 21 or younger at the time of their crimes.)
e As long as our government is allowed to kill prisoners, long sentences will appear lenient or
even merciful rather than harsh and unacceptable. The death penalty exerts an upward
pressure on sentencing by making life in a cage look like “getting off easy.”
e As the ultimate and most visible symbol of American “justice,” the death penalty reinforces
the notion that true justice requires vengeful and extreme punishment. Unless we address the
myth that justice requires an “eye for an eye,” the public appetite and demand for punishment
will continue to flourish. This is a major obstacle to transforming the justice system into one
rooted in safety, healing, restoration, redemption, and human dignity.
e Itis essential to continually decrease the use of, and ultimately end, the death penalty.
Diminishing the death penalty’s role and potency in the national narrative will make way for
systemwide reforms by interrupting racist narratives, reducing the pressure towards extreme
sentences across the system, and lifting up new allies (impacted persons, victims, law
enforcement, corrections, etc.).
2. There is Growing Momentum to End the Death Penalty (MOMENTUM)
Possible audiences: The Supreme Court, the State and Federal courts, governors, legislators,
business leaders, reporters, candidates, etc.
e More and more states are turning away from the death penalty every year. New Hampshire
was the ninth! state to end the death penalty since 2007, and many other states--from Wyoming
to Utah--have come close to getting rid of it in recent years. Ten additional states haven't carried
out an execution in over a decade.’
e Conservatives around the country are increasingly at the forefront of the movement to end
the death penalty. Between 2000 and 2016, the number of Republicans sponsoring death
penalty repeal bills increased ten fold. (In the last three years, Republicans sponsored repeal
bills in New Hampshire, Utah, Wyoming, Louisiana, Kentucky, Montana,and Missouri.)
e A growing number of states are choosing to end the death penalty because of its high cost,
unfair and racially biased application, and the risk of executing an innocent person. (Alt version:
A growing majority® of states are abandonning the death penalty in law or practice because...)
e Half of all of the states have either abolished the death penalty or have a governor-imposed
moratorium on executions.
1 NJ, MD, CT, IL, NM, and NH ended the death penalty legislatively. WA, DE, and NY ended the death penalty
judicially.
? 10 states haven't carried out an execution in more than 10 years, these include WY, NV, CA, PA, CO, NC, KY, MT,
KS, and OR.
331 states, plus DC and the federal and military governments have essentially abandonned use of the death penalty:
21 states and DC have formally ended the death penalty and 10 states (and the federal and military governments)
haven't carried out an execution in more than 10 years (four of these states also have executive moratoriums).
e Public opposition to the death penalty is at an all-time high as more voters realize that
capital punishment targets the most vulnerable people, is applied in a racially biased and unfair
manner, risks executing innocent people, and harms victims’ families.
e Use of the death penalty is growing increasingly isolated. Just a handful of outlier counties
use it on a regular basis. In 2018, only four counties out of more than 3,000 nationwide
sentenced two or more people to death.
e In 2018, the United States was the 7th most frequent executioner worldwide, isolating itself
further from a growing number of countries that have abandoned the practice in recent decades.
(72% of the world’s countries have abandonned capital punishment in law or practice.)
e IN RESPONSE TO QUESTION ABOUT AN INCREASE IN EXECUTIONS: Executions are
representative of jury decisions made a decade or more ago, when death sentences were much
more common. Today, new death sentences are at historic 40-year lows representing a
significant shift in public opinion. Many of the individuals currently facing execution would never
receive a death sentence if they were tried today.
3. The Death Penalty is Deeply Flawed (DEEPLY FLAWED)
Possible audiences: Governors, legislators, DAs and local decision makers, candidates,
reporters, etc.
e The death penalty is costly, ineffective, and inaccurate
e The death penalty is it expensive and ineffective at deterring crime, and it is applied in an
unfair and racially biased manner.
e The death penalty is broken beyond repair. Innocent people have been condemned to die
and even executed for crimes they did not commit. Repealing the death penalty is the only way
to ensure that we never execute an innocent person.
e The death penalty is not an effective response to violence. Not only does the death penalty
fail to deter crime, but it takes precious tax-payer dollars away from more effective programs
that have actually been shown to make our communities safer.
e As long as we have a death penalty, there will always be a risk of executing an innocent
person. More than 165 men and women have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to
death in this country, and some have even been executed.
e Study after study shows that the death penalty is significantly more expensive than a
sentence of life in prison, while providing no additional benefit to society. Death penalty cases
are expensive because of long court delays and the added protections that are constitutionally
mandated when execution is on the table; trying to make the death penalty less expensive will
only make the process slower and increase the risk of executing an innocent person.
e The death penalty traps victims’ families in a decades-long cycle of uncertainty, court
hearings, and waiting. There are many better ways to address the trauma experienced by
victims’ families that don’t include forcing them to wait years or decades for an execution that
may never come. We should be looking for ways we can help victims’ families outside of the
criminal justice system (and that are not connected or reliant on what happens to the
perpetrator).
AUDIENCES:
State lawmakers, governors, the courts and judges, reporters, partners in the criminal justice
reform space (including donors), prosecutors, law enforcement, local officials, candidates, etc.
MESSENGERS:
Impacted individuals, especially formerly incarcerated individuals, exonerees, and victims’
families
Racial justice/civil rights leaders
Conservatives
Evangelicals and religious leaders
Corrections, law enforcement, and prosecutors
Judges
People from allied/connected movements
Legal experts
BACKGROUND: [information current as of June 1, 2019]
21 STATES & DC HAVE ABOLISHED THE DEATH PENALTY
Alaska Co Del. Hawaii
Illinois lowa Maine Maryland
M. b ichig Mii New Hampshire
New Jersey New Mexico New York North Dakota
Rhode Island Vermont Washington West Virginia
Wisconsin & District of Columbia
10 OTHER STATES HAVE HAD NO EXECUTIONS IN MORE THAN 10 YEARS
California (2006) Colorado (1997) Kansas (1965)
Kentucky (2008) Montana (2006) Nevada (2006)
North Carolina (2006) Oregon (1997) Pennsylvania (1999)
Wyoming (1992)
10 DEATH PENALTY STATES HAVE HAD FEWER THAN 5 EXECUTIONS IN 50 YEARS
Colorado Idaho Kansas Kentucky
Montana Nebraska Oregon Pennsylvania
South Dakota Wyoming
10 DEATH PENALTY STATES HAVE FEWER THAN 15 PRISONERS ON DEATH ROW
Colorado Idaho Indiana Kansas
Montana Nebraska South Dakota Utah
Virginia Wyoming
4 STATES WHERE THE CURRENT GOVERNOR WON’T ALLOW EXECUTIONS
California Colorado Oregon Pennsylvania
5 STATES WHERE AT LEAST ONE HOUSE OF THE LEGISLATURE HAS VOTED FOR
ABOLITION IN RECENT YEARS
Colorado (2009) Montana (2011) Nebraska (2015) Utah (2016)
Wyoming (2019)
