This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 24, 2009 - New Mexico repealed its death penalty last week. It's the second state to eliminate executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. New Jersey repealed its death penalty in December 2007. Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia do not have the death penalty.
Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas and New Hampshire legislatures have bills in various stages of consideration that would repeal the death penalty in those states. In Illinois, a moratorium has been in place for several years, and Gov. Pat Quinn has said he has no plans to lift it.
The Missouri House is considering a bill to put a three-year moratorium on the death penalty while a blue ribbon panel can study the fairness of the sentencing convicted murderers to death.
Missouri House Bill 484 , sponsored by Rep. Bill Deeken, R-Jefferson City, would not repeal the death penalty. In fact, Deeken supports the death penalty in principle but sees unfairness, possible racial or socio-economic discriminatory applications in the way it is meted out.
Some faith leaders in Missouri - including Southern Baptists, National Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews, Lutherans, Methodists - support the moratorium. Much of the impetus for the repeal in New Mexico came from faith leaders who have been actively working together for a dozen years.
"Faith groups were a big part of the puzzle," said Cathy Ansheles, co-founder and first director of the New Mexico Coalition for Repeal of the Death Penalty. Her coalition began in 1997.
Her coalition was able to raise money and use non-profit postage rates by nesting under the wing of the New Mexico Conference of Churches. Despite having the word church in its name, nearly all New Mexico major faith groups including Jews and Buddhists belong to the conference. Nearly all supported the repeal efforts, she said.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of New Mexico and the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops brought their legislative expertise to the coalition.
Over the years, the New Mexico House and Senate had passed a similar repeal, but they never both passed a bill the same year. And Gov. Bill Richardson was opposed.
"A repeal bill never had reached the governor's desk," said Allen Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops and president of St. Joseph Community Health.
This winter, when Richardson was named to be secretary of Commerce, anti-death penalty advocates rejoiced. If he moved to a cabinet post, Lt. Gov. Denise Demish would become governor. She said she would sign the bill. That hope crumbled when Richardson withdrew because of an investigation of his administration.
In the midst of their disappointment, New Mexico repeal supporters pushed on, especially the Native Americans and Catholics.
"Bishop (Ricardo) Ramirez and I sat down first week of the legislative session and saw the possibility that we might get the repeal vote," Sanchez said. Ramirez is bishop of the Diocese of Las Cruces, N.M.
One of the more dramatic sessions came when relatives of murder victims testified for the repeal.
"Many victim families don't want further violence, don't want the death penalty," Ansheles said. Before she founded the coalition, her great-aunt had been murdered, and she didn't want the violence continued.
Other important testimony came from men who had languished for years on death row in several states before being exonerated.
"The exonerates who came from other states really helped," Viki Elkey, executive director of the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty said. "They shared their stories of wrongful convictions showing that our criminal justice system is flawed."
When it appeared the bill might pass, the governor, who is a Catholic, asked for a dinner meeting with Santa Fe Archbishop Michael Sheehan, who invited Bishop Ramirez.
"After he met with the bishops, the governor said he would not try to influence the legislature, and if the bill got to his desk he would seriously discern the issue," Sanchez said.
The bill did pass. Under New Mexico law, a bill dies unless the governor signs it within 72 hours.
"He really wrestled with signing it," the Repeal Coalition's Elkey said. The governor was told, for instance, that in the past 20 years The Innocence Project has identified 234 imprisoned individuals exonerated nationally because of DNA testing.
"It weighed heavily on him that there is no going back, if the state executes an innocent man," Elkey said.
Two days before Richardson's deadline, Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Domestic Justice and Human Development Committee, wrote Richardson saying the legislation "would help begin building a culture of life in our country."
The next day, Richardson visited the death chamber and death row in Santa Fe. He also saw the small cells where convicts who get life in prison with no parole are held.
"He saw that life in prison in that small cell could be worse that the death chamber," Elkey said. "Of course, if evidence eventually shows that they are innocent, the life sentence is reversible."
When Richardson returned to his office, he invited Ramirez and Sanchez to discuss moral and safety issues. Richardson talked to them about various points including his concern that prison guards and police would be less safe if murderers couldn't be executed, Sanchez said. They told him that police and prison guards are killed with the death penalty sentence available so it does not seem to be a deterrent. They also told him that if New Mexico repealed the death penalty he no longer would have to worry that an innocent man's blood would be on his hands, Sanchez said.
"You can get an innocent person out of prison but not out of the grave," Sanchez said. When the bishop and the conference director left the governor's office, the governor sent his staff away to decide alone.
Richardson signed HB 285 into law at 6 p.m., six hours before it would have died.
Richardson is a good example of a leader who is not personally opposed to the death penalty but realized that our justice system has not been just to some on death row, Ansheles said. "More leaders can relate to that," she said.
She hopes that New Mexico adds momentum to death penalty repeal efforts in other states. "New Mexico is ready to help other states," Elkey said.
Patricia Rice has written about religion and the death penalty for many years. .