Good morning. Welcome to the third abolition university online education session sponsored
by Virginians for alternatives to the death penalty. Today we're going to be looking at
conservative opposition to the death penalty and the role of conservatives in the abolition
movement. We have a terrific panel of speakers today and looking forward to the interaction.
We've got, we're going to have, uh, lead off with Hannah Cox, who is the, if I have the title
right program director for conservatives concerned about the death penalty and she's going to
provide a national perspective because she's been working in multiple states over the past few
years. Then two of our board members are going to speak Chris Brownlick, who's president of the Thomas
Jefferson Institute for public policy, which is a free market conservative public policy think tank
for the Commonwealth of Virginia and Nick Cody, a very active Northern Virginia libertarian who
has been active in politics for a long time. And then finally we're going to have our field director,
Dale Bromfield speak, to talk about his interactions with conservative audiences in his time doing
field work for us. So we're looking forward to having everyone speak. Again, I'm going to mute
everybody so that if you have any questions, please submit them via the chat feature and we should
have time at the end to get through all the questions that you might have. So again, welcome. And
I'm going to mute you Hannah and there you go and welcome to Hannah Cox.
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and to meet all of you. I have been the senior national
manager of conservatives concerned about death penalty for the past two years. And we have been
around for about eight years in total. We went national in 2013 after a group of conservatives
started forming this movement sort of organically in Montana. They felt that it was inconsistent
for conservatives to support the death penalty that it was a failed big government program marked by
all the error and correctability and and problems that we see in some of the other areas of government.
And they also thought that it risked not only innocent human life between know it does, but then
it also wasn't a pro-life position to ever suggest that human lives were disposable. And they also
thought that it was extremely expensive. It wasn't in keeping with this school conservatism and so
it really failed to meet the values of conservatism as a whole. And they sort of loosely calling themselves
conservatives concerned about the death penalty. And what they found was that there were actually a lot
of conservatives who had been really questioning their stance on this position and didn't really have
a place to organize or a place to go to flush that out with people that they trusted and who had a
small worldview. And so it took off rather quickly. And in 2013 we went national at CPAC and have
been building ever since then. During that time we've seen tremendous shifts in this country on
the death penalty, but especially amongst Republicans and conservatives on the right. When we first
started studying this through a report that we issued called the right way, we found that if you
look at the year 2000 around that error, it was virtually unheard of to see a Republican state
lawmaker introduce a piece of legislation to repeal the death penalty. But by 2012 that number had
doubled and by 2016 we saw increased 10 fold. For the past two years while I have been leading this
organization, we have seen over 50 Republican lawmakers at the state level every year
sign their names as co-sponsors or sponsors of pieces of legislation to repeal the death penalty.
And we've seen that done in 10 states or more in the past two years, which is really very
impressive when you consider that only 25 states have active death penalty systems. Not only that,
but we've seen dozens and dozens of other Republicans who have voted in favor of repealing the
death penalty, but maybe didn't have their name signed on as sponsors. We also have seen a real
movement kind of get some movement behind these repeal campaigns. It's not just being done symbolically
we're actually seeing them win in New Hampshire in 2018. We did repeal the death penalty legislatively
even overriding a Republican governor's veto in both chambers, which was significant. That's
very difficult to do and the governor's campaign and his advisors had really worked very hard
against that veto and had made it a partisan issue and had been somewhat threatening that they
would try to remove people from office who voted against him in that way and still people showed up
to vote in that manner and were successful. So I thought that that was a really tremendous win and one
that we certainly would not have gotten without Republican support, significant Republican support
in that state. And then this year we saw the same thing happen in Colorado where they had been
trying for over six years to repeal the death penalty. They had a democratic majority and it kept
failing, it kept failing, it kept failing. And finally this year what we saw were three Republican
senators stand up and say, and that was where they really needed the votes was in the Senate chamber
and say that this is not conservative and this is not something that we will stand by and this is
something that we need to get rid of. And they worked very hard on that. And because of their efforts
we were successful in Colorado and repealing the death penalty within the first two months of 2020
which is a very quick turnaround. It was an impressive campaign to be a part of and thank God we did
it as quick as we did because COVID would have interrupted our plans had we been even a couple of weeks
later than where we were in that session. On top of that we've seen real movement in states like
Wyoming which is a very red state. We had a young Republican state lawmaker Jared Olsen who
felt compelled to lead on this. We were not really a part of his initially introducing the bill. He
did this on his own and so we started watching it last year just out of curiosity. We thought it
was interesting that Wyoming was running with a bill and it started moving very quickly and before
we knew it he had actually passed it out of the house and then we were onto the Senate and we had
vote counts that suggested we could win that. I still think that that was true and we ended up losing
just two or three people and lost it at a very narrow margin. But I think they will be back next year
and I do think Wyoming will be successful in repealing the death penalty at that point. They
were only not doing it this year because they every other year have short budgetary sessions where
it's it's pretty impossible to get anything not budget related introduced. So that's why we're having
a bit of a gap here there. Outside of those campaigns we're also seeing real movement in states like
Ohio which is traditionally a very high usage state. They have one of the largest death rows in
the country and have been active in carrying out executions until very recently. That wasn't a
state that the movement was looking at as a target for repeal any time in your future to be
totally honest but what happened was they elected a new Republican governor, Governor Mike DeLine
a couple of years ago and within his first couple of months in office he removed the executions
that had been scheduled for the immediate president and said that the evidence showed that this
was not constitutional and that they wouldn't be carrying out executions under his watch until
they found a way to do it and he has continued to hold that posture over the course of a year and
a half now and they have not had another execution in that state. During that time we've seen a
significant Republican leadership coming out in favor of getting rid of it. They have a
ultra conservative speaker of the house in Ohio named Larry Householder ironically and he has
been quite vocal in the media and talking about how he doesn't think that the death penalty is
working or matching it with conservative values and that's probably something that should be done
away with and is talked about trying to move that forward and looking at what those possibilities
will be with his caucus. So I think that we could very very likely see a real repeal campaign
coming out of Ohio in the next year or two and I think we could win there. That I think is a
testament to just how far we've come in this country if we're talking about repealing the
death penalty in very red states like Wyoming and in red and also how usage dates like Ohio.
I think if you do see that transpire would at that point will be down to only a handful of states
that still have active death penalty systems which will predominantly be the deep south southern
Baptist strongholds and I think that we will see some real movement even in those states because
increasingly they're going to have to answer for their high budgets around this issue. They're
going to have to answer for the number of innocents that we've seen discovered in their systems.
They are going to be competing for foreign investment dollars which those states are heavily
reliant on and which we know will increasingly be heading towards states that don't have those
times of systems because the rest of the western world has done away with the system and they see
as a human rights violation and so if they have the option to be an attack free state like Wyoming
that doesn't have the death penalty or attacks free state like Tennessee that killing people left
and right they're going to go to Wyoming when they're being courted and that could be a real problem
for states like Tennessee that are heavily reliant on those foreign investment dollars.
So I think increasingly you will see pressure put on these very high usage south eastern states
and I think we could see changed a lot sooner in those regions than many people might suspect as well.
On top of that besides just active repeal campaigns we have launched 15 state chapters of
conservatives concerned about the death penalty at this point and those are networks of people
on the ground that are comprised of conservatives and grass-top people who've been very active in
their state political parties for many many decades they're comprised of people who have some
sort of position as a state holder in this by murder victims family members by former members of
law enforcement and district attorneys and attorneys general and public defenders and judges
police officers members of corrections they're comprised of faith leaders across all denominations
and they're really doing tremendous work to educate people on the problems of the death penalty
system because I think that is really the only barrier we have left to repealing in this country.
Most people who are in support of the death penalty have never been around the justice system in any
meaningful capacity they typically have a strong emotional reaction which I think is very human
and normal to have in the face of violence and instinctively might say they support the death
penalty but in my experience if you can even have a five to ten minute elevator pitch with most
people into explain the way that the system is actually functioning you typically see people will
regress from their positions of support quite quickly they might not become abolitionists who are
marching next to me the next day but they certainly will not be as active and their supporters
vocal and their support and at the end of the day we've never been a part of a state repeal
campaign that has had any organized opposition other than DA's conferences or maybe police
police associations in some format and so to sit in these committee rooms across the country
and see the bulk of the people sitting on the side of repeal giving testimony for hours,
punish hours, punish hours and then to see the dwindling small numbers of people who are there
to test violence and support of keeping it is a very stark contrast and you see one side show up
with data and facts and personal involvement and you see the other side show up largely with
fear mongering and a desire to keep their power and it's it's working I think you can see through
that when you start looking at what's happening these committee rooms it's pretty transparent
who's on the right side and who is then and so I believe that will continue to happen and I think
the groundwork that we're laying in the state where we have chapters will also significantly
impact who kill campaigns down the road because as more and more people are being educated about these
laws as more and more people are getting the elevator pitch for why this doesn't work we will see
those coalitions brought in and continue to see more people showing up to actually push for repeals.
So we are just very excited about this momentum in the country I think there is a real zeitgeist
for change we've seen the approval rates for Camille Justice Reform just skyrocket in recent years this
is one of the few issues Republicans and Democrats are agreeing on and really working together on
at this point and I think that's a testament to just how bad our system is when people are in
mass agreement that this is the problem we need to fix and the government is not the solution
at the end of the day here we need to get this system off of people's backs and redirect our
dollars to programs that could actually work to deter violence in the first place and towards
solving more crimes which we still do very little of in this country we only solve about 60% of
homicides on average every year and for violent crimes such as rape and for property crimes the
the numbers are even smaller than that and so we need to make sure that we are investing our
dollars in programs that actually work and the deputy is certainly not what it does so I will
leave it there I'm happy to answer questions later if anybody has any but I would love to plug
people in with our work and get excited for the next year thank you Hannah just a couple
points I maybe ask you to reflect on it in my experience conservatism is a very broad term but
my experience it's made up of many different components main street business Republicans T party
folk pro-lifers second amendment advocates trump populists never trumpers and libertarians of
different perspectives are you and the other thing that I've noticed is that there seems to be a
real generational difference in perspective between older Republicans and Democrats for that
matter and much longer younger lawmakers the older ones seem to still be locked into that
law and order lock them up and throw away the key pro-death penalty perspective while the younger
generation seems less locked into that perspective and I'm wondering if you see those kind if you
see any differences between the different perspectives and the conservative movement on this issue
and do you see the same kind of generational differences across the country yeah absolutely I
am always asked you know what's the one argument that's winning Republicans over and I always say
there's not one argument that's winning Republicans over you're absolutely right that the party is
very much fractured into different segments that have pretty different ideologies if you really
roll it down and so the the thing about the decimalty is there are so many problems with it there
are so many flaws that there's actually something for everybody you know T party conservatives who
are more concerned with budgets and taxes and where dollar being allocated are probably going to
be more concerned with the money that we're spending on the system and the opportunity class that
presents the pro-life faction that is more evangelical is probably going to be more concerned with the
innocence issues and with the racial disparity in the system and on and on and on and so certainly
I think that you can reach all of these different segments within Republicanism through all the
flaws in the decimalty there's not just one that works there's just so many issues that there's
kind of something for everybody to grab onto and that will stir them up and I think that's why again
we're seeing success but certainly there is a generational gap I think that's not just with our
issue that's with many issues and probably as a argument for why some people shouldn't be in office
so long but we are seeing younger people become much more educated about these things you know they're
more online they see videos more often of incidents they probably are watching true crime documentaries
and listening to podcasts I think that the true crime entertainment boom has done significant
work and helping us reach people and really helping them see behind the curtain of the justice
system in ways that they probably hadn't before and they're realizing how fallible it is and how
corruptible it is and so they're feeling good and motivated to change when I'm speaking to a younger
audience and I say there's been one person exonerated for every 10 executions in this country they're
like oh yeah I know did you see this documentary about this innocent case or did you hear about this
incident and they they're very much in it and and a bit more familiar with it if I say there's racial
disparity in how we are applying our justice system they say oh yeah did you see the video of
George Floyd this week with the cop who had his boot on his neck where is my parents you know who
are boomers they probably aren't seeing those videos I'm taking it to them and saying did you see this
that they're not they're just not as cute in in those ways for the most part there is
exceptions that of course so I think they're less likely to have encountered some of this and to
have been educated as much I don't find a difference generationally when I'm giving a speech
if I get the opportunity to present to a Republican lunch and club and there's millennials and
there's Gen Z and there's whatever comes ahead of the oils that we're got in generation and boomers
I see a pretty equal response actually I see a lot of people who just are shocked and I think
that was my first reaction when I was first changing my mind on the death penalty was how could I
have been so wrong how did I not know any of this I need to do better and and be more thoughtful
and how I'm determining my policy and that's more the reaction I get so I think the older generation
is a little harder to reach but I don't think that they are impossible to move thank you Hannah
um yeah next I want to turn things over to Chris Brownlick to talk about his perspective as a very
active Republican here in the Commonwealth there you go Chris well thank you I mean I'm less of
an active Republican than I used to be but certainly active in the conservative movement and I
can make this real quick um what Hannah said I mean just about everything Hannah said this this
little device has has equalized an awful lot of things for a big generation and an increasing
generation of adults where where once there might have been two or three people standing around
watching something now it's it's millions literally because they see it after the fact and they
learn very quickly that um what you're told and always what's what's really the truth I think that
the key for us is is if you're a conservative you're probably skeptical you're skeptical about
big business you're skeptical about big unions you're skeptical about big government um and if you
are skeptical that that the education system is working well if you're skeptical that the social
welfare system is working well they are bureaucracies so is the criminal justice system if they make
mistakes the criminal justice system is going to make mistakes and and when when conservatives start
thinking about that aspect of it it becomes very logical for them they they simply say well yeah
that makes sense um and and the key with this is that with the death penalty if you make a mistake
you can't cut it the state can't cut a check for a hundred thousand dollars or two hundred
thousand dollars and say here we're sorry it's permanent you can't go back you can't there
are no givebacks on that um and I think that that ultimately that gets to the heart of
of an awful lot of people um because most conservatives tend to be fairly pro-life uh and
that will resonate with them I think um conservatives have always been uh
Paul had had interviewed me a while back and conservatives have always have always
there've always been conservatives that were against the death penalty um I came to this in high
school when I read things that we in the Buckley Road um I think that the politics of this as you
pointed out Michael the um the you know let's lock them away we're going to be tough on crime
I mean that that generated very quickly in the late 60s and it held on for an awfully long time
um but I think that uh people are starting to look at the real record now and and concluding
it isn't working the way it's supposed to work and I think they're going to start backing off
the politics of it though is that if you want to get that changed you've got to find someone
who can break through all the clutter is in is an outright political spokesman not a
not a bill buck not a bill buckley but someone else outright political spokesman and I assume
you're going to get into that a little later because I it's the reason I think we're on the cusp of
a very big victory here in Virginia and I'll leave it at that um Chris do you want to talk a
little bit about that um why don't you go ahead and delve into that well I think I think that
and you know it better than I uh senator bill Stanley made a speech on the floor of the senate
um talking about uh it was a severe mental illness bill but basically unscripted
said when a death penalty abolition bill comes here I will vote for it uh and and said it openly
said it profoundly um had people come up to him afterwards and I don't know which ones were private
conversations in which weren't so I I won't repeat them but but clearly um I think that there are
people in the general assembly conservatives in the general assembly who are looking for someone
who will lead on some of that and and Stanley's um an independent cuss I know the
respects and I I don't think he cares about the politics of it all uh the stories I've heard about him
is he's going to do what he thinks is right uh and and that can take take us a very long way
yeah just uh a remark about senator Stanley for those who don't know him he represents a broad swath
of southern Virginia along the north carolina border probably is conservative a part of the state
he's going to find um he's a very big second amendment advocate he took uh the commonwealth to court
over um some of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic um very much interested in individual
liberty um but privately he had told us for years that he was opposed to the death penalty he
considered um the death penalty to be on par with uh abortion and that as somebody who opposed
abortion he felt he was conscience bound to also oppose capital punishment um but he was always
I think hesitant to speak publicly about it um and this is where politics can get very uh personal
and individual um his best friend in the state senate was a fellow Republican from south was
Virginia who had had a loved one murdered and as a result of that experience was a strong proponent
of the death penalty so I think senator Stanley never wanted to vote against his friend or speak
on the other side of his friend on this issue and it was only when that senator retired last year
that I think he finally felt free to speak his mind on this issue within the senate and we were
hoping that he might take that step this year but uh we had no idea he was going to speak as
powerfully as he did on the floor of the senate when they were debating a bill to exempt people with
severe mental illness from the death penalty and in fact his speech on the floor
flipped five Republican votes who would oppose that bill the prior year into supporting it this
year so that at 1.32 to 7 uh 11 of the 19 Republicans voted for that bill and um so we're going to be
honoring senator Stanley with our legislature of the year award at our annual lunch and in October
assuming we're going to be able to gather for that lunch and if not we'll do it virtually um and
we're hoping to have a conversation with him about strategy um I know senator uh
suitor line from uh the roon oak area has said publicly that he has to reconsider his position on
capital punishment and light of uh senator Stanley's comments and we think there are others I'm
going to ask senator Stanley to help identify who those folks are and maybe help us get meetings with
them to see if we can uh move them over that border into the abolition camp so again I agree with
you totally Chris this is a very exciting and promising time and uh I think all it takes is one
Republican to say or one lawmaker to say politics be damned and to speak uh his or her mind
and that gives permission for others in that chamber to uh to question orthodoxy and to uh
uh to reconsider their positions so um so thanks a lot Chris um I'm not even get a couple of
Democrats to reconsider their positions they don't want to be to the right of the Republicans uh
well I think there are a couple of Republicans and the I mean some Democrats in the senate that
are going to be lost causes uh uh and again I think this sort of speaks to the issue that um
um the death penalty is one of those issues that can cause people to um to cross expectations of party
you expect Republicans because it's in their uh platform to support the death penalty but that's
certainly isn't always true and likewise there are a number of Democrats uh particularly in the
older generation who are steadfast supporters of capital punishment uh including the senate
Democratic leader uh Dick Sasslaw um and he talks about being damn proud of being the author of
current capital punishment law in the Commonwealth um so it's politics are very interesting on this
issue and that party affiliation doesn't always tell how someone is going to vote
um and so now I want to introduce Nick Cody um another one of our board members who's going to be
coming at this from um um a his perspective as an active libertarian so Nick welcome and we look
forward to hearing what you have to say so it's great to be her Michael I really appreciate having
this opportunity uh I just start with some sort of personal background um uh you know it's sometimes
when I hear somebody introduce me as a libertarian I think about what uh my father would think if he
heard if he heard that uh I mean he's he's heard it many times but I was raised by uh sort of
typical New England liberals uh and my father has joked before what did I do wrong you know he turned
out the way that he did um you know but what was important to me about my parents and how how they
raised me is they very much encouraged me to think for myself uh I remember very strongly uh this
would have been in the mid 90s um uh I once saw a joke I think it was about uh New Gengrich there was
a joke posted in in a doctor's office uh and I repeated it to my father who probably agreed with
the sentiment behind the joke but he was sort of troubled by the fact that I was just regurgitating
something I had seen uh without sort of thinking it through for myself but he he very much encouraged
to read on my own to debate him to think through you know various issues and uh in in high school
uh what that sort of ended up meaning for me is that I became uh a a lower case out of a libertarian
I wasn't a member or I really you know interested in in third party politics at the time uh and the
the issues I was mostly thinking about were economic regulation uh taxes um government suppression
of political speech were probably uh the things that uh were were most important to me uh now I would
say most libertarians would probably say that they oppose uh the death penalty for a number of
reasons but at the time I was actually a supporter of of the death penalty um my logic was that as a society
you know when people commit certain crimes then as a libertarian I I believe there should be
fewer of those crimes uh and the punishments for them uh should potentially be much less strict
but I believe you know people commit certain crimes and as to society what we do is we then
take away their liberty um when they for instance have taken away somebody else's liberty when they've
committed violence against another person when they've um you know stolen somebody else's property
that is appropriate as the society um to take away their liberty and it's sort of just followed
to me and made a certain logical sense then that if you know you take away somebody else's life you
take away their right to life that society similarly uh connects your size the power to take away your
life I didn't really think through a lot of the implications of what that meant as I later did um and
that journey kind of started in college uh I um you know as as I said before I was mostly interested
in economic issues and and the first amendment but in college I started reading a lot more about
the criminal justice system and in particular there was a a libertarian writer uh yet that when I
first started reading him he was a policy analyst at the Cato Institute libertarian think tank
and then he went over to Reason Magazine the libertarian magazine and then later um more mainstream
journalism the Huffington Post and and uh and now the Washington Post name name is Radley Valco
and he had I knew Hannah would uh it probably knows the story that I'm about to refer to very well
he introduced me to the story of man named Corey May a man an African-American man in Mississippi
who had been convicted of murder in 2001 for and sort of the certain facts of the case were
never-induced viewed he did in fact a uh shoot and kill a police officer but when I learned more
about the facts of the case what happened leading up to that event and what happened at trial
I became a pretty outraged at at at the case and that led me to question a lot about the criminal
justice system including the death penalty it was a case that and so just very quick details of the
case uh Radley Valco was asleep at home it was about two or three in the morning he was a law
abiding man other than the fact that he occasionally consumed uh or I don't know if the facts are
even established that he occasionally consumed marijuana but there was a marijuana cigarette found in his
his duplex but what what happened was the police had a warrant for the other side of his of the duplex
the other homeowner uh and they exercised they no-knock warrant in the middle of the night uh on the
wrong side of the duplex so uh he thought his home was being invaded uh it was it was not a particularly
safe neighborhood a high crime neighborhood he thought his home was being invaded in the middle of
the night and he did what I think a lot of people would do uh he he reacted and uh tried to defend
his family including his infant daughter who was asleep in the bedroom with him uh and he didn't
hear police announced uh that they were police officers he just he just thought uh his home was
being invaded so he he in my opinion that's a libertarian exercise the Second Amendment rights he
he happened to have a gun you know on him and and fired at who he thought were violent intruders
breaking into his home uh and then there were later subsequent issues with how the warrant was
obtained uh hit the the council that he received a trial the trial was moved to a different locality
with with a uh a different jury make of their racial issues there were so many just issues that
compounded uh on top of of what ended up happening and this was the case that actually got got a
lot of attention in libertarian and conservative media uh you know a lot of conservatives who who
otherwise might support uh the death penalty were pretty outraged by the case because they saw
it as a man defending exercise and his rights and defending his family and his home uh from from
who he thought was violent intruders uh fortunately Corey May is now uh was subsequently uh
freed um it was a very uh long case that that took years and you can read more about it I would
highly recommend a book by by Bradley Belko uh and Tucker Carrington from the Mississippi Innocence
Project uh called the to cadaver king and the county dentist county dent that's another part of
what there was really uh I I learned about some of the the so-called expert testimony that is
often used in uh uh capital cases that relies on some really shoddy science um and you can do
I would highly recommend reading that book to learn if you want to learn more about that uh so later uh
I you know as time went on I just became more interested in criminal justice issues in general
uh and I was really when I moved to Virginia I was pretty outraged at the slow pace of progress
on those reforms here in Virginia because a lot of other states very conservative states like
Texas and Utah come to mind uh we're passing a lot of really comprehensive criminal justice reforms
but in Virginia um we couldn't even get votes on the floor there were unfortunately uh you know
a couple of powerful committee and subcommittee chairman who would kill a pretty even very minor
criminal justice reform legislation um that uh even might have might have passed at the time if
it actually reached the floor for a vote but unfortunately they all died in committee and then I
saw a ray of hope uh for criminal justice reform in general and and even the death penalty abolition
in 2015 uh governor uh Terry McCullough had it was ultimately successful but his initial attempt
to uh pass legislation uh that would exempt from the Freedom of Information Act information related
to the procurement of the drugs used for lethal injection so he wanted to basically prevent
people of Virginia from finding out what are the drugs they're using how did they obtain them
there are a lot of issues related that because even the way that they obtain them is often in
violation of of contract of contracts with the drug manufacturers the drug manufacturers
you know that as far as they're concerned they're pharmaceutical companies that are creating
medicine to save people's lives uh and they don't believe that they should be used to kill uh so
they're often very troubling ways that these drugs are obtained to use for lethal injection so
governor and then the state of Virginia was having difficulty obtaining drugs uh so he so the
governor had proposed a policy to exempt uh from public disclosure information related to state
the procurement of these drugs so uh as I said I saw a ray of hope at the time because a number of
contemporary conservative Republicans of Virginia actually opposed the initial attempt by
governor McCollough to pass this execution secrecy legislation uh there were you know Tea Party
Republicans who had you know very strongly believed in government accountability they were questioning
why uh this was happening so uh I invited Michael uh who at the time had just joined the ADP as
the executive director to come speak to a group of uh libertarians in northern Virginia about
this fight about the San Juan fight and how they could help uh and then subsequently after that
Michael invited me to join the board of the ADP uh and I've been very happy to serve ever since you
know so in general uh if I could just say a you know a brief general word about my sort of journey
on the death penalty as I said I I used to be uh in favor of it and I sort of can still see an
intellectual argument uh that I the one that I made earlier uh but the practice on the ground the
way that the criminal justice system actually works the racial disparities that happened the
uh you know there's there's just the the likely code of executing innocence uh there are just so
many reasons to oppose it and then just more broadly uh I think you know if if I'm somebody who
opposes big government well there is no bigger government than a government that kills that is
the biggest act government can take that is the most awesome power government can possibly wield
and it does not exercise it in a prudent way it does not exercise it in a just way and so there's
I can no longer find any reason to support the death penalty and I'm now happy to work and try to
recruit other conservatives and libertarians to join the fight. Well thanks Nick it's interesting
that you um use that perspective um uh former Republican attorney general Mark Early oversaw 36
executions in his time in office and several years ago he wrote a law review order uh law review
article for the University of Richmond um that outlined his opposition to the death penalty uh and
he uses a very similar argument to the one you use Nick and um said you know I could make an
intellectual argument for the death penalty but it's tired forced and um I no longer find it
persuasive and um and I think that's where a lot of conservatives are in terms of the death
penalty so Dale I'm gonna turn things over to you Dale is been our field director now for about
three years and has made uh monumental progress in uh broadening uh the number of increasing
the number of libertarians and Republicans and other conservatives uh into uh VADP and the
death penalty movement in general so Dale uh please uh share some of your perspectives from your
experience. Sure thank you Michael and thank you all for being with us today um three years ago when
I first took this job my primary focus was on only Republican groups and libertarian groups and
six targeted legislative jurisdictions around Virginia and uh what I found in trying to get into
first of all I had a very tough time getting in front of these Republicans but I eventually started
getting in front of them and I started speaking to groups in Chatham Virginia which is in
Pennsylvania County one of the redest and most uh law and order counties you're gonna find
Virginia I had a very good talk down there I talked to out in Cyan Crossroads I went to uh Smith
Mountain Lake uh talking to these Republican groups and then I went and uh after I started making
some headway with some of these Republicans I was invited by equal justice USA and conservatives
concerned to go to CPAC and I thought oh well here we go the belly of the beast uh so I went to CPAC
in 2018 and I came way rather surprised actually um I found that the at least the ones who came to our
booth the Republicans who were coming up for a booth were saying they're not wanting so much to
get in our face and debate the death penalty they'd come up and look at the sign and they'd say
why should I support death penalty abolition so I'd tell them why and never talking about the pro
life argument or any of that talking about the costs the the racial disparities the lack of
deterrence and all and possibility of innocence and they said well okay yeah I'm with you on this
and they sign up our mailing list and leave well this is not so bad and to Hannah to go off what
you were saying uh about generational differences in 2019 I went back with Hannah and Heather
Boadwan and a couple of others to CPAC again and there was even more stark the generational
difference uh the young Republicans who would come up to our booth were on board and what
did I know was how can I defend being against the death penalty how do I do it you know I am
against the death penalty but I want to know how to properly defend my position so I had this
wonderful opportunity to stand there and tell them well here's here's all you need to do so
in 2019 at CPAC I had one or two and I call it the OWG Republican who comes up it's an old wide
guy and those are the ones that are the hardest to turn over they just tend to be more law and order
traditionalists and they're the ones who want to stand there in debate and listening to their
debate you'll hear they're working on emotion they believe in the theory of the death penalty
without knowing anything about the actual process so once we start talking about the process even
they go well you know what and I've had a couple say all right well you convinced me uh so well
that's very gratifying to hear and CPAC also I met a member of the Virginia Federation of
Republican women who happened to be there so she and I were talking and she's uh all four death
penalty repeal uh and she said well I'm a member of the of the Springfield chapter of the VFRW I
said well can I come talk to your chapter and she said well yeah let me talk to them see if you
can so I did I got a chance to go get in front of these 16 women all Republicans all older
and talk about the death penalty and we had eight of them including their leadership sign up to our
mailing list and that's always my goal is to get them on our mailing list so that was pretty
gratifying and I wound up getting in front of I think four or five of those groups and I was a
vendor at their conference for two years in a row uh so I was making tremendous headway with the
Republican women um but then all of a sudden uh they they kind of their platform imploded I don't
know what happened and I have not been able to get much headway since then but my focus
much since the Democratic takeover of the House and the Senate and of course our our Democrat
governor lieutenant governor attorney general my focus has shifted a little bit now talking to
libertarians I always say to the libertarian groups no offense Nick they're low hanging fruit I mean
talking to a group of libertarians is really easy because they're all on board and a hundred percent
sign up and it's like well you know what this this is great and it's great to talk to a group that's
all a hundred percent with you but those aren't the minds that I really need to change I need to get
in front of the tough groups and some Democrat groups have been tough but you know I don't mind
going to front of a tough group I always say this is a no judgment presentation I don't care if
you're for it against it on the fence or have no opinion whatsoever and our goal is to leave as
friends okay no no nothing argument if you're so it's been very encouraging and in the three years
of a doing this job I've seen a a big change in the field with not just Republicans libertarians
but them some Democrats as well they seem to be more open to listening and they seem to have a
more stronger opinion that the death penalty simply is not working and I think one of the things
is once again the generational issue where the younger ones are going to the older ones they look
this video look what's going on billions of people are watching these things these transgressions
and law enforcement and criminal justice and more people are seeing them and it's making them
more aware that the system is really shattered and with the death penalty like like Nick and Chris
were saying there's no going back you can't release them from the grave you can always release
them out of jail if if you're wrong but you can't get them out of the ground so it's very encouraging
to see the the change in attitude that's going on across Virginia.
All right thanks Dale if anyone has questions use the chat button at the bottom of your screen to
send them to me and let me just open it up to any of the panelists that you know do you have any
anything you'd like to comment on you know from what others have said.
Well Dale did trigger a memory for me that I thought it was just kind of a funny tidbit
from this past session in Colorado when you talk about the old white guy there is that subsect
in republicanism that you meet and they're just like they just won't change their mind like you
could throw every bit of evidence at them and they just they they literally will say to me I'm too old
I'm just oh sorry and that's that's rare for me I don't find that guy often but I did have a
money in townter in Colorado this year I was working on one of the republican house members
and he was just really struggling sorry I'm on a screen important there is the loudest
frog I've ever heard in my life next to me but he said to me at the end of our conversation he said
I think you might be the best lobbyist that's ever come in my office like you're really really good
and I said no I really really have the facts on my side like there is no reason to be in support
of the system and that's why I'm very good at this because all the data is in my corner right like
I just have to tell you the fact and and he kind of you can tell he felt sad about it he said I don't
think I can do it I'm just too old I'm sorry but like I think your arguments are convincing and
so it is it's a warning when you encounter that guy because you can tell like it's some kind of
pride or eager to stick with thing they just can't bring themselves to change on it and and those
conversations you kind of just have to walk away but that just made me think of that memory and I
thought it was kind of a funny conversation I've had several of those too yeah yesterday I had a
very interesting conversation with the Democratic lawmaker in the Virginia General Assembly and
she also kind of falls in that camp knows that she should oppose the death penalty but doesn't
know if she could cast that vote it's just very interesting so it's it's bipartisan one question
that came up have you had been able to have any constructive interaction with district attorneys
here in Virginia they're called Commonwealth's attorneys and it's an elected office and
um
historically we that had been a really tough audience though Dale had made a bit of a breakthrough
at one of the Virginia Republican women's conferences Dale do you want to comment about that?
Yeah this woman just came up to my table and told me she goes well I'm the Commonwealth
Attorney for the City of Lynchburg her name was Bethany Harris and she just got elected she was
the first female Commonwealth Attorney in the City of Lynchburg and she's Republican and she said
I'm very I'm against the death penalty and I said well can we open up a dialogue with you and so I
think Michael you got to go meet her and talk to her for an hour and a half one day and I might
want to share what you all talk about but that kind of opened the door and all of a sudden it seemed
like more and more Commonwealth attorneys have suddenly come on board especially with the Democrats
have stood up and and publicly said like in Fairfax they said I'm ending the death penalty in Fairfax
there will not I will not pursue it at all while I'm in office so more and more of these and we
actually had a sign on letter of Commonwealth's attorneys this year and I don't remember the exact
number Michael you'll have to fill me in on that but we had several Commonwealth's attorneys
start signing on with help from I think the ACLU of Virginia helped us with that right?
Now it was Justice forward for Virginia Justice forward, Justice forward VA did it but anyway
so yes progress thanks is all started with this Republican woman that I met and it seemed to
got to get the ball rolling with other CAs now the the chore now is to get the Commonwealth's
Attorney in Association to at least be neutral about it that would be a huge step for us if they
took this. Now basically we got we had 21 current and former Virginia prosecutors
signed that letter calling for abolition including two former attorneys general one
Democratic and one Republican and we're working to get more we're hoping to at least double that
number before the next session of the general assembly hopefully as many as 50 and there are
a number that I think are willing to be supportive of us but aren't willing to be public so they're
more private supporters where they may call the elected legislators from their area saying I
really don't see any need for the death penalty anymore and I would encourage you to consider
voting for abolition or lobbying with their own association to take a neutral position so we need
help both publicly as well as behind the scenes from those folks so yeah it's very encouraging lots
of things are moving in our direction and where if we can get a clean vote in committee and then on
the floor of the legislature this coming session I'm cautiously optimistic we could win I think we
have the votes in committee and on the floor in the house it'll be close but if we can get it out
of judiciary committee in the Senate I think we'll have the votes on the floor to abolish next year
but everything's going to have to align just right for that to happen but with growing support from
conservatives in the legislature that will happen and it's really important for it to be
truly bipartisan because it's far less likely to become an electoral issue and subsequent elections
if you can say that there's significant a decent number of Republicans joined most Democrats in this
because we there are some Democrats who just never gonna get for abolition and so the more we can
make it a bipartisan win the more secure that's going to be and from any future legislatures
we have time maybe for one more question if there is one and if not any of the panelists do you
have any closing comments before we before we sign off all right well again thank you so much
for being with us today we appreciate it and have a great day. Thank you.
Thank you.
