Death penalty abolitionists gather in Dover
DOVER, Del. – Death penalty abolitionists from across the state gathered at Legislative Hall Tuesday to urge lawmakers to support House Bill 35.
House Bill 35 is an amendment to the Delaware Constitution adding five words to Article 1 Section 11 that say, “nor the death penalty imposed.”
“So by those five words we will put limits on our future government from trying to bring back the death penalty,” said Kevin O’Connell, Chief Defender for the Office of Defense Services, “but we’ll also express an eternal truth that we all believe in Delaware and that is justice, in our system of justice, should be rooted in healing and not in killing.”
Delaware’s death penalty has either been abolished or deemed unconstitutional on several occasions over the last 70 years, only to be repeatedly reinstated.
Between 1992 and 2012, Delaware executed 16 people under a statute that was later deemed unconstitutional.
“We’ve seen over and over and over again how people have been incorrectly sentenced to the death penalty, how people have been actually executed and in some cases, very rare, there have been death sentences that have been overturned, and so we know that we don’t have a system that’s perfect, we know that we have a system that cannot guarantee innocence and cannot guarantee guilt,” said Fleur McKendell, President of the Delaware NAACP State Conference of Branches.
Advocates said the death penalty is not a criminal justice issue, it’s rather a civil rights issue.
“People of color are more likely to be put to death for the same crime as a white person and so it’s not implemented fairly, it’s not about justice, it’s about vengeance,” said Rev. Rita Mishoe Paige, President of the Dover District Ministerium of AME Churches.
Clergy members also said the state should take a more forgiving and restorative approach to those convicted.
“The call, at least for people in the church, is to recognize that God’s grace can’t be fully completed in someone’s life if we cut that life short through the death penalty,” said Rev. Tom Pasmore, Peninsula of Delaware Conference of the United Methodist Church.
“We’re hoping that legislators will listen to their constituents in Delaware who, more than 65% of Delawareans want to abolish the death penalty once and for all, listen to them, amend the constitution and make sure that we never bring back the death penalty again,” said O’Connell.
HB 35 would go one step further by enshrining the death penalty ban in the Delaware Constitution.
In 2023, GOP lawmakers called for the First State to bring back the death penalty following the conviction of Randon Wilkerson, who brutally killed Delmar Police Corporal Keith Heacook in the line of duty.
