Ambitious Effort To Abolish Death Penalty

Posted by | November 9, 2015 07:30 | Filed under: Politics


It may eventually be death for the death penalty.

Henderson Hill and Rob Smith are the odd couple shepherding a collaborative effort to end the death penalty in America at the most significant moment for that movement in decades.

As talk of mass incarceration, racial disparities, and criminal justice legislation has permeated the public debate on both sides of the political spectrum, another effort has taken shape under the radar: the laying of the groundwork for a Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty is unconstitutional, a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

When Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, raised the prospect this June of the Supreme Court revisiting the constitutionality of the death penalty — using a key part of Smith’s work as evidence — the ground shifted overnight, and discussions went from hypothetical to hyperdrive.

In the wake of that change, two of the death penalty’s most strident abolitionists sat down with BuzzFeed News to make their case not only for ending the death penalty in the United States — but for doing so in the next few years. The effort, as with so many focused on the Supreme Court, ultimately comes down to Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The 8th Amendment Project, which Hill and Smith run, is a centralized effort to advance death penalty abolition research, raise issues of legal system accountability, and help capital defense efforts — all with the Supreme Court in mind.

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Copyright 2015 Liberaland
By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.

One response to Ambitious Effort To Abolish Death Penalty

  1. Snick1946 November 9th, 2015 at 11:23

    Meanwhile in Nebraska where the legislature ended the DP this year the state is on track to repeal the repeal and reinstate it. A petition drive is on track to get on the ballot next year. I have no doubt that NE will bring it back. Our governor is already shopping for DP drugs and there is talk of fast tracking those on death row once the DP comes back.

    Hard to believe, isn’t it?

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