The death penalty is slowly fading away

The Bottom Line from NC Newsline

Demonstrators marched in front of the governor's mansion asking the governor to commute the death sentences of those on death row. (Photo: NC Newsline/Kel Lyons)

There are a lot of reasons that the death penalty is almost never imposed anymore.

As a growing cadre of experts has demonstrated, the death penalty is hugely and uniquely expensive to apply and doesn’t deter crime –indeed, there’s compelling evidence it spurs more of it.

What’s more and more importantly, stacks of evidence now confirm the death penalty has long been applied unjustly. Not only is it mostly reserved for cases involving defendants who are poor and of color and victims who are white, there are many cases in which the horror of innocent people being sentenced to death has occurred.

It’s for these reasons and many others that most of the world and half of U.S. states have now abolished the death penalty and that President Joe Biden and former Gov. Roy Cooper should be congratulated for their recent actions to convert several death penalty sentences to life in prison.

The bottom line: The death penalty is fast becoming an obsolete relic. North Carolina would do well to make this official by removing it from its statute books.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.