Let's Reverse the Death Penalty's Revival
Hi Friends,
While 23 states have -- like most of the rest of the world -- abolished the death penalty, those that haven't abolished it used it to kill more people in 2025 than in any other year since 2009.
This horrific and shameful trend has absolutely nothing to do with crime rates or any change in the evidence that the death penalty does not reduce crime. Rather, it is the result of Trump's encouragement, of the U.S. Supreme Court's rejecting requests from lower courts and blocking the introduction of evidence, and of states hiding the details of how they're killing people from the public.
States are subject to pressure not just from Trump, but also from all of us. We've moved states to abolish this barbarity. Now, let's move your state. Email your state legislators and governor here.
Do so more than once, and ask others to do the same!
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Here is an email aimed at persuading your elected officials. You can edit it with your own words:
As your constituent, I urge you to move forward right away on formally abolishing the death penalty in our state, as has already been done in so many other states.
The evidence shows no deterrent effect from the death penalty.[1]
The death penalty, even if never imposed, is used by prosecutors to bully people — some of them innocent of any crime — into plea agreements.[2]
Since 1973, over 200 people have been exonerated and removed from death row in the United States. An unknown number of innocent people have been executed.[3]
Use of the death penalty is persistently and significantly racially biased.[4]
The financial cost of exhausting appeals and executing someone far outstrips the cost of prison, which far outstrips the cost of a top-quality education.
Much of the world and the world’s governments condemn the death penalty as a gross violation of human rights. For this reason, the U.S. government is sometimes unable to extradite people charged with crimes. For the same reason, the U.S. government struggles in efforts to recommend better human rights practices to other nations.
1. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/deterrence
2. https://olemiss.edu/news/2024/01/death-penalty-bargaining/
3. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence
4. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-eberhardt-bias-death-penalty-20190321-story.html
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