Should states be allowed to differ on the death penalty?
Right now, Tennessee is at the center of the national debate over capital punishment.
Christa Pike, convicted of the particularly heinous 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, was scheduled to be executed on September 30 before a federal appeals court issued a last-minute stay.
The latest news I’ve heard is that Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the federal appeals court’s last-minute stay and allow Christa Pike’s execution to proceed. As in many such cases across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court previously declined to intervene on Pike’s behalf.
This particular case is receiving more media attention than usual because a woman is being executed. The last female executed in the U.S. was in Missouri, almost four years ago. And I vividly remember the debate over the execution of Carla Faye Tucker in Texas back in 1998.
The vast number of appeals and the amount of time that offenders are sitting on death row all point to the extreme difficulties it usually takes states to carry out any execution. Tennessee has carried out just 17 executions since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.
But the debate over capital punishment also highlights something I appreciate about federalism and that is states can reach different conclusions about how serious violent crimes should be punished.
And I’m fairly skeptical that capital punishment serves as a deterrent anymore. Texas, which is clearly number one out of all states when it comes to executions, has carried out more than 600 death warrants since capital punishment was reinstated. Still, I doubt that number has any real deterrent on any murders in the state.
But, unlike some, I do think there is a moral argument for a state carrying out the death penalty. In my view, a state that reserves its most severe punishment for the deliberate taking of innocent life is making a strong statement about the extraordinary value of that life. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that states with capital punishment tend to have stronger protections for the unborn. Additionally, I find it hypocritical that some countries in Europe are highly critical of American states utilizing the death penalty while having fairly lax laws on assisted suicide.
Finally, I don’t have any problem with people disagreeing on an important issue like capital punishment, but I absolutely think federalism leaves room for states to answer this question differently. There are always calls for a national ban on capital punishment when a state execution takes place, but the gravity of the issue only underscores to me why state judgment matters.
And some states that retain the death penalty have effectively backed away from using it. In Ohio, for example, Gov. Mike DeWine, once a death penalty supporter, has repeatedly postponed executions and has said he does not expect any to occur during the remainder of his term. North Carolina, my home state, has the death penalty, but the last inmate executed was in 2006.
On questions this consequential, the ability of states to go down different paths should be a reminder that we don’t suspend federalism because of the seriousness of the issue or the ethical implications.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat