A pair of bills that would abolish the death penalty in Pennsylvania are headed to the state House, where supporters say they believe the measures would receive bipartisan support if they’re put up for a vote.
The prime sponsors, Rep. Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia) and Rep. Russell Diamond (R-Lebanon), offered different rationales for ending capital punishment in the commonwealth, but both agreed it is morally fraught.
“The death penalty is not justice,” Rabb said in a news conference after the Judiciary Committee passed House Bill 99, introduced by Rabb, and House Bill 888, introduced by Diamond, both with 14-12 votes. All Republicans on the committee opposed the bills.
“It is a policy failure. It is a system that is costly and ineffective, and most importantly, irreversible, and in a system as imperfect as ours that should give us all great pause. We know that wrongful convictions happen,” said Rabb, who noted it was the fifth time he has sponsored the legislation.
Diamond, speaking during the committee meeting Monday, said he approached the issue from a conservative angle. H.B. 888 has the support of three Republican lawmakers: Rep. Marla Brown of Lawrence County, Joseph D’Orsie of York County, and Valerie Gaydos of Allegheny County.
“I believe in the sanctity of all life … from conception to natural death. I believe in the promise of Christian redemption for all souls, even those permanently behind bars,” Diamond said. “I also believe that our criminal justice system is the self defense mechanism for a civilized society, but there is no element of self defense in executing someone already in captivity.”
Diamond added that among the hundreds of people sentenced to die in Pennsylvania in recent decades, 13 have been exonerated. Most recently, Daniel Gwynn, convicted of arson and murder in 1995, was cleared after nearly 30 years on death row.
“Law enforcement, prosecutors, judges and juries sometimes make mistakes, but those can be appealed and reversed,” Diamond said. “A mistaken execution cannot.”
Democrats control the House with a narrow 102-101 majority. While House Democrats could pass either bill without Republican consent, support from both parties could help the measures if they are passed to the Senate, where Republicans maintain a 28-22 advantage.
Pennsylvania is among 27 states that still have the death penalty. Although 103 people remain on death row, the commonwealth has not executed anyone since 1999 due to factors including the lengthy appeals process and a significant number of exonerations and resentencings. For more than a decade, the state has had a moratorium on executions put in place by Gov. Tom Wolf and extended by Gov. Josh Shapiro.
Advocates from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Amnesty International and the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation joined Rabb and other lawmakers to urge their colleagues to vote to abolish the death penalty.
Jimmy Dennis spent 25 years on death row for the 1992 murder of a 17-year-old girl that he did not commit. After Gov. Tom Corbett signed his death warrant in 2011, a federal judge stayed his execution. His case ended up before Judge Anita B. Brody, who found Philadelphia police had ignored, lost or covered up evidence that exonerated Dennis.
“I could be your brother, your sister, your mother, your best friend, anybody,” Dennis said. “What happened to me can happen to anybody. We cannot allow Pennsylvania to carry on with the death penalty, because we know that mistakes can be made.”
The death penalty is deeply inequitable along racial and economic lines, Veronica Miller, deputy legislative director for the ACLU-PA, noted.
“It’s not just a punishment, it’s a legacy of racial violence that continues to shape who lives and who dies in this country, a punishment so irreversible, administered so unevenly, cannot be reconciled within a system premised on equal justice under the law,” Miller said.
The mere existence of the death penalty perpetuates inequity in the justice system, she added. Enforcement is at a prosecutor’s discretion, meaning its use varies from county to county. And when public defenders are called on to represent an indigent death penalty defendant, it places a disproportionate strain on an already underfunded system, Miller said.
“Abolishing the death penalty is not just about ending one form of punishment,” Miller said. “It’s about confronting the inequities that define it, making a necessary step toward a more equitable, accountable, effective criminal justice system.”
Speaking during the committee meeting, Rep. Tim Bonner (R-Mercer) said he opposed Rabb’s bill as a former prosecutor who has prosecuted death penalty cases.
He noted that while the death penalty once had a “sordid reputation,” the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 found it was being applied unconstitutionally, prompting the requirement that a jury find aggravating circumstances before imposing a capital sentence.
Bonner said it would be a mistake to abolish the death penalty entirely and suggested it should be reserved for only the most heinous crimes such as terrorism or school shootings.
“Do we not want the death penalty as at least a potential consideration, because the Supreme Court of the United States says that is appropriate when you have aggravated murders of that nature?” he asked.
Francis Harvey, the interim executive director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, told reporters at Rabb’s news conference the reality is that efforts to reform the death penalty over the last 50 years has only proven that it’s as error prone as it is inhumane.
“Death sentences in the commonwealth are reserved, not for the worst of the worst of the worst, but for the poorest of the poor, for people with serious mental illnesses and intellectual disability and cases where the victim’s life is valued more than other lives, that is, cases with white victims,” Harvey said.
She added that Pennsylvanians are increasingly unwilling to look the other way.
A poll taken last year by Susquehanna Polling and Research showed 58% of likely Pennsylvania voters preferred some version of a life prison sentence for a person convicted of murder over 29% who supported the death penalty. That was a decrease from a decade earlier, when 42% of likely voters said they preferred the death penalty.
