A former chief justice from Georgia decried capital punishment Tuesday, dubbing it “morally indefensible” and void of business sense.
Norman Fletcher served on Georgia’s Supreme Court from 1989–2005, and nearly 25 executions occurred in Georgia during his 15-year tenure. In that time, he voted to uphold numerous death sentences. But after receiving the Southern Center for Human Rights’ Gideon’s Promise Award for establishing Georgia’s public defender program, Fletcher slammed the death penalty for being an unethical practice.
“Capital punishment must be permanently halted, without exception,” said Fletcher, who served as chief justice for five years. “With wisdom gained over the past 10 years, I am now convinced there is absolutely no justification for continuing to impose the sentence of death in this country.” Arguing that many innocent people have been killed, Fletcher mentioned the racial disparities in who receives death sentences, as well as economic and political factors that determine if and when capital punishment is used.
Since a national moratorium on capital punishment ended in 1976, the number of death row inmates has skyrocketed. As of January 1, there were 3,019 prisoners waiting to die.
But Fletcher is far from the only one slamming death penalty for moral reasons. For instance, foreign manufacturers have stopped selling drugs used for lethal injections in the U.S., on the grounds that execution is unethical. Medical professionals and pharmacists are now prohibited from participating in executions, further impeding access to lethal injection drugs. And last February, Pennsylvania’s governor suspended all executions, stating the “system is riddled with flaws, making it error prone, expensive, and anything but infallible.” Eighteen states ban capital punishment altogether, while several others have imposed moratoria.
As a result of national and international backlash, states are increasingly reliant on unregulated compounding pharmacies that sell non-FDA approved products. The shortage of lethal injection drugs is also pushing states to adopt alternative execution methods. Utah re-authorized the use of firing squads, and Oklahoma, which is embroiled in the lethal injection debate due to a botched execution, recently reinstated the use of the gas chamber.