DELAWARE – The Delaware Legislature has voted to advance a constitutional amendment banning the death penalty, a historic move in a state once known for having the highest per capita execution rate in the nation, according to The Verdict.
In an article by Austin Sarat, The Verdict reports that Delaware’s Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 2016 but lawmakers did not repeal it legislatively until 2024. Now, the Legislature has approved a constitutional amendment banning the practice, with only a second vote in the next legislative session needed to finalize it.
Sarat notes that Michigan and Puerto Rico are the only U.S. jurisdictions to explicitly prohibit the death penalty in their constitutions, though several other states have ended the practice through court rulings or legislation. Without a constitutional ban, Sarat writes, the penalty can be more easily reinstated by lawmakers or overturned by courts.
He argues that death penalty abolitionists should seize the momentum from Delaware’s legislative action and push for constitutional bans in other states. Statutory or judicial decisions, he warns, can be reversed when political power shifts.
Delaware Public Media details the state’s turbulent history on the issue.
“After several legislative attempts to abolish the death penalty in the 1950s, a bill was passed in 1957 and signed by Governor J. Caleb Boggs, making Delaware, at that time, the second state to abolish the death penalty. The death penalty was restored in 1961 when lawmakers overrode a veto from Governor Elbert Carvel to enact a bill to reestablish it,” the outlet reported.
Other states, including Oregon, Arizona and Nebraska, have also repealed and reinstated death penalty bans over time, Sarat writes.
An advocate for the Delaware amendment said the time has come to end that uncertainty.
“After more than 50 years of an on-again, off-again relationship with the death penalty, I think that what history has taught us is that this is an experiment in constitutionality that we no longer can afford as a state.”
