Death Penalty Opponents Launch Major Campaign Amid Execution Surge

• “It does not deter. It serves no good public function and it certainly isn’t making people feel safer.” – Barry Scheck
• “There’s no greater indicator of how Americans feel about the death penalty than in the jury room.” – Laura Porter
• “If we want a system that values justice over finality, human dignity over procedure, the only real solution is to end capital punishment.” – Alexis Hoag-Fordjour

A broad coalition of more than 50 organizations has launched the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, marking one of the largest coordinated national efforts in decades to abolish capital punishment. The launch comes at a moment of rising executions, renewed political pressure to expand the death penalty, and what experts describe as a widening gap between public sentiment and state practices.

Laura Porter, executive director of the new campaign, opened the event by introducing the coalition as a united force bringing together advocacy groups, litigators, researchers, faith leaders, conservatives, community organizers, civil rights organizations and death row exonerees from across the United States. She described the coalition as a coordinated response to accelerating execution practices and said its purpose is to ensure opponents of the death penalty have the resources and strategies necessary to “make the biggest impact.”

Porter said the political leaders pushing for more executions are “out of touch with the views of Americans,” noting that Gallup’s most recent polling places support at a 50-year low. 

She connected this to the steep decline in new death sentences nationwide, saying, “There’s no greater indicator of how Americans feel about the death penalty than in the jury room.” Fewer than 30 new death sentences are expected this year despite a national population of more than 348 million, a figure she cited as evidence of a historic shift away from capital punishment.

Barry Scheck, co-founder and special counsel of the Innocence Project and an advisory council member of the campaign, called the new coalition “an extraordinarily important campaign.” He said the public debate must acknowledge facts that “innocent people have been put to death” and that “201 of them have been sentenced to death and then taken off death row.” 

Scheck said the death penalty is expensive, ineffective and dangerous when used as a political tool, adding, “It does not deter. It serves no good public function and it certainly isn’t making people feel safer.”

Scheck described political exploitation of capital punishment as a significant driver of wrongful convictions. He warned that making death sentences a campaign issue increases the likelihood that innocent people will be executed. He also urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom to “clear death row before he leaves office,” calling it a move that “makes sense as a cost measure” and “as a statement about what this country should be.”

Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and longtime capital litigator, focused her remarks on what she called “the collapse of meaningful federal judicial review of state death sentences.” She said federal courts have become “a virtual mirage,” one that now values “finality over accuracy, deference over justice.” 

She detailed the case of Keith Tharp, a Black man sentenced to death in Georgia whose juror reportedly questioned whether Black people “even had souls,” called him racial slurs and urged execution to “set an example.” She said courts at every level refused to meaningfully review the evidence of racial bias. Tharp died incarcerated in 2020. Hoag-Fordjour said the case was “a symptom of a system in which federal courts are no longer meaningfully checking state abuses.”

She added that the irreversible nature of capital punishment means the system cannot tolerate such failures, concluding, “If we want a system that values justice over finality, human dignity over procedure, the only real solution is to end capital punishment.”

Sister Helen Prejean, one of the country’s most recognized anti-death penalty advocates, said her 35 years of traveling and speaking about executions have shown that public opinion shifts dramatically when people learn how the death penalty actually works.

 She said many Americans support the death penalty only because “people don’t see it,” calling executions a “semi-secret ritual behind prison walls.” Prejean described witnessing executions firsthand, including the killing of Ivan Cantu in Texas, and said most Texans did not even know an execution was taking place. She said this distance from the reality of executions helps sustain public acceptance.

Prejean said the death penalty reflects “all the deep wounds in our society,” especially the belief “that you use violence and cruelty to solve social problems,” which she connected to a broader climate of harsh political rhetoric. 

She spoke about the evolution of the Catholic Church’s teaching on capital punishment, saying it took centuries for the institution to embrace the position that the state can never be trusted with the power to take life. She said the Church ultimately concluded that “under no circumstances, no matter how grave a crime, can we ever entrust over to the state the right to take life.”

Despite the surge in executions, Prejean said she is “full of hope,” emphasizing that when people are brought close to the reality of executions, “they get it.” She said the campaign’s success will depend on engaging the public and giving them ways to participate, noting her desire for the campaign to provide avenues for people “to take action to get into the movement by doing something.”

Demetrius Minor, executive director of Conservatives Concerned, spoke about growing skepticism of the death penalty among conservatives. He said his organization engages Republicans “in dialogue about the failures of the policy of capital punishment,” adding that “more and more conservatives across the country are questioning the death penalty and advocating for change.” 

Minor said many come to the issue from a pro-life stance or out of concern over government overreach. He said Republicans in Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Oklahoma have introduced repeal or moratorium legislation and that “every successful repeal of the death penalty in the last 20 years has included support from pro-life Republican legislators.”

Minor said capital punishment is “the height of big government” because it is the one punishment that cannot be reversed. He argued that as more people learn about the policy, “the more unpopular it becomes,” citing concerns about innocence and polling data showing declining public support.

Samantha Kennedy, executive director of the Promise of Justice Initiative in Louisiana, described the state’s death penalty system as one that disproportionately targets the poor, people with severe mental illness, individuals with low IQ scores, and Black defendants. She said that in Louisiana, “80% of these cases on death row are reversed,” calling the reversal rate “unconscionable.” 

She criticized state leadership, saying Louisiana’s governor “doubles down feverishly wanting to kill people,” and warned that officials are attempting to create a test case to bring back the execution of children.

Kennedy said public opinion in Louisiana does not support such measures, pointing to a recent statewide rejection of a constitutional amendment to expand the prosecution of children as adults. 

She said the public’s rejection shows “children belong in legal spaces designed for children,” but that political leaders have instead “upped the ante” by attempting to expand permissible executions. She said the Promise of Justice Initiative joined the national campaign because “we have to build collective power” and because “the death penalty won’t abolish itself.”

Herman Lindsay, executive director of Witness to Innocence and a Florida death row exoneree, spoke about the fear among people currently facing execution. He said people on death row are worried about whether their lawyers can present their issues in court before a warrant is signed. He said inmates are fearful they “may be the next one in line,” and that many cases contain errors courts are overlooking, “especially mental issues at hand.”

Lindsay described federal executions during the Trump administration, stating that “13 people was executed by the federal government in six months time period,” and that the Supreme Court repeatedly allowed executions to proceed through its “shadow docket.”

He highlighted multiple cases in which people with intellectual disabilities, severe mental illness, or new evidence were executed without new hearings. He said his own exoneration occurred only because his case came before a court “that did not value finality over fairness.” He said the campaign’s work is critical “given the administration renew interest in seeking execution.”

Coalition leaders said Florida is responsible for a large share of this year’s executions. Porter noted that “if you get rid of Florida,” the national number would remain consistent with recent years, but that its pace has produced “the most executions that we’ve had in more than 10 years.”

Speakers also fielded questions about the political climates in several states. Minor said that in Indiana, repeal efforts require continued engagement from conservative lawmakers, explaining that Republican support is essential because “it takes Republican and conservative support to get it across the finish line.” 

Hoag-Fordjour described North Carolina as a state where capital punishment has been heavily shaped by politics, including judicial elections and longstanding racial discrimination in jury selection. She said political pressure has influenced courts to “protect and defend death sentences” despite evidence of constitutional violations.

Speakers also discussed the expansion of execution methods. Sister Helen Prejean said efforts to present executions as humane have failed, noting autopsy evidence that people executed by lethal injection experience extreme suffering. She said new methods such as nitrogen hypoxia and firing squads continue the search for an execution method that does not exist. 

“We have been trying and trying to show that we can do the killing of a conscious imaginative human being in a humane way and it is impossible,” she said.

As the event concluded, Porter said the coalition is encouraged by the movement’s momentum and the breadth of organizations joining forces.

 She said the coalition looks forward to the progress “we will make in the coming years” and invited continued engagement from the public and the press.

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