(Washington, DC) The Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act was reintroduced in Congress Thursday by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick J. Durbin (D-IL). The bicameral legislation would prohibit the use of the death penalty at the federal level, and require re-sentencing of those currently on the federal death row.
Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN), the national Catholic organization working to end the death penalty, joined more than 200 organizational endorsers of the legislation. CMN executive director Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy offered the following statement:
“CMN applauds the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act, which would eradicate the flawed and morally bankrupt federal death penalty system. As Catholics who believe in the inviolability of human dignity, we understand that we cannot build a culture of life with a federal government that can put people to death. This legislation opens up the possibility for more healing and life-affirming forms of justice.
It was this very month three years ago when the Trump administration broke a 17-year hiatus from federal executions and took the life of Daniel Lewis Lee. In the six months that followed, the administration went on to kill a dozen more people, disregarding ample evidence that the federal death penalty system is racially biased, arbitrary, and fraught with errors. This shocking backslide into executions tarnished any claim the administration made to be ‘pro-life.’
There is little doubt that capital punishment will one day be abolished in the United States, but time is of the essence. As long as executions are legal, human lives are on the line. It’s time for Congress to exert the political will and moral courage needed to abolish the federal death penalty once and for all.”
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Catholic Mobilizing Network is a national organization that mobilizes Catholics and all people of goodwill to value life over death, to end the use of the death penalty, to transform the U.S. criminal justice system from punitive to restorative, and to build capacity in U.S. society to engage in restorative practices.
