Utah death penalty: ‘Just Mercy’ author urges lawmakers to ban executions

Utah is ready to abolish the death penalty, author and activist Bryan Stevenson told lawmakers on Wednesday.

“Utah is a state where no one has been sentenced to death for a crime that has taken place in the last 20 years,” he said, but the state still spent millions of dollars on litigation and appeals for those sentenced to death.

Stevenson – who published the best-selling memoir “Just Mercy” in 2014 and founded the Equal Justice Initiative to eliminate excessive and unfair sentencing – took to Capitol Hill to discuss capital punishment in Utah.

Utah’s death penalty law has been targeted by lawmakers before, but efforts to strike it down failed in the House of Representatives in 2016 and 2018. This year, Rep. Lowry Snow, R-Santa Clara , sponsor HB147, to prohibit the state from seeking the death penalty and adds a possible sentence for aggravated murder of 45 years to life.

The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, who said he changed his mind on the matter.

Ahead of a closed-door meeting with Governor Spencer Cox, Senate Speaker Stuart Adams and House Speaker Brad Wilson, Stevenson spoke publicly alongside Snow and McCay to address their legislation.

“I actually think the death penalty is an obstacle to creating public safety,” Stevenson said. “(Utah) can really start thinking about how we can use these millions of dollars to provide more care and services to victims, to strengthen law enforcement efforts in promoting public safety and simply to create a culture that affirms the importance of life, diversity and justice.

Many proponents of the death penalty cite the need for justice and turning a blind eye to victims’ families, Stevenson said, but in his experience the lengthy appeals process actually prolongs suffering.

“I can’t tell you how many times in discussions I’ve had with people on this issue they’ve described how important it is that we get justice and – in our current state – we’re not in able to do so. for families,” Snow said. “It’s part of the struggle of the victims.”

The most prominent death penalty case in Utah was that of Ron Lafferty, who was sentenced to death for 34 years before dying in prison in 2019. Lafferty was sentenced alongside his brother, Dan Lafferty, for killing Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter, Erica, on July 24, 1984. The brothers claimed they were following a revelation from God and slit both victims’ throats in their home in American Fork.

Brenda’s sister, Sharon Wright Weeks, was 15 at the time of the murders and recently spoke out against the death penalty. She initially hoped to see Ron Lafferty executed, but instead said she had been tormented for decades as hearings dragged on with no results.

“I don’t want another human to suffer what I know is their pain,” she told Deseret News in October. “If a death sentence is handed down, it will trigger the process of their own personal hell.”

She said the court process was like “being chained to the person who so brutally abducted your family members”.

Stevenson pointed out that in many cases justice is not equivalent to the crime committed and said the death penalty is a flawed approach to justice.

“We don’t hire anyone to torture people who have been convicted of torture. We wouldn’t think it appropriate[…]that a state agent rapes someone who has been convicted of rape,” he said. “It would be unacceptable to do that.”

“We believe very much in mercy, redemption and justice. … We should be better than the people in our society who commit the worst crimes,” Stevenson continued. “I never understood the logic of killing people to show that killing is wrong.”

If HB147 passes, those convicted of aggravated murder could still face 45 years to life in prison, which Stevenson says is by no means a “light sentence.”

“In most countries in the world, there is no life without parole,” he said, because “it is an extremely severe sentence. … That’s why I feel like we’re not going to give up on everything we’re trying to achieve by being tough and strong and reactive when people commit horrific and violent crimes.

Will lawmakers vote to abolish capital punishment?

In October, a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found that 51% of Utahans oppose abolition of the death penalty. That number appears to be down significantly from a 2010 poll that found 79% of Utahns strongly or somewhat in favor of the death penalty.

Senate leaders were asked earlier today about their support for the bill. Adams was reluctant to indicate whether he supported the bill, but said he was open to discussion.

“It’s a tough, tough question,” he said. “I’ve seen the challenge that comes from hideous crimes that are very, very difficult to understand. And the victims are entitled to it too, in terms of how they feel. … It’s a difficult process. It probably needs to be updated or reviewed, so I’m open to discussion and listening very carefully.

“I’ve always been opposed to abolishing the death penalty,” Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers said of R-Cedar City, adding that his respect for Snow made him open to conversation. . “Maybe my thoughts can change.”

Senatorial Minority Whip Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, said her caucus supports eliminating the death penalty, saying a potential bid for the Olympics would have a better chance if it were. the case.

“There are certain things in the global marketplace, in the global economy that I think are hurting Utah for having this in our status,” she said.

Stevenson argued that abolishing capital punishment is a somewhat bipartisan issue because it’s more than just a social justice initiative — it’s fiscally responsible and prevents the government from going overboard on an issue. of life or death.

“We have a lot of Republicans across the country who not only reject this idea that we need to have the death penalty, but have elevated this notion that if we think we can’t trust the government to dictate health care policy — helping us decide whether or not we should wear a mask or get vaccinated – why do we trust them to determine who should live and who should die? he said.

Colorado, Virginia and New Hampshire have all abolished their death penalty laws since 2020, Stevenson said, in part because lawmakers think it’s “time to…stop wasting our time being distracted by the death penalty, which consumes all the air in the room”, but has infrequent applications in reality.

Snow cited a Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice study that found the state spent $40 million to prosecute 160 death penalty cases – only two of which resulted in a death sentence. .

“I’m thinking about what we could do with that money to support the families of the victims,” ​​Snow said.

Only four people have been executed in Utah since 1990, the most recent being Ronnie Lee Gardner who was executed by firing squad on June 18, 2010.