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Editorial: Shapiro’s bold call on death penalty right on point (BARF)
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | February 20, 2023 | The Editorial Board

Posted on 02/20/2023 5:53:07 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Gov. Josh Shapiro Thursday boldly called on legislators to abolish Pennsylvania’s costly, ineffective and immoral death penalty. In urging legislators to act, an unprecedented move, Mr. Shapiro showed some sorely needed leadership from the governor’s office.

Unless Mr. Shapiro engages the legislature, the death-penalty statute will endure. He needs to take the lead in persuading the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate to approve bills that would repeal it. Former Gov. Tom Wolf refused to do that.

In making his statement a month after his inauguration, Mr. Shapiro signaled that getting state government out of the business of killing people will be a priority. He appears willing to spend some political capital on a fundamentally moral issue. That’s encouraging, but to succeed, Mr. Shapiro will have to lobby legislators and address the issue in public, perhaps the biggest test yet of his political skills and acumen.

Mr. Shapiro has a model to guide him: Former Gov. Ralph Northam led the fight to abolish the death penalty in Virginia. In 2021, it became the first Southern state, and the 23rd in the nation, to abolish the death penalty.

Opposing the death penalty still carries some political risks, but they’re not overwhelming. Since 2009, seven states have abolished the death penalty.

In remarks at Mosaic Community Church in Philadelphia, Mr. Shapiro, a former death-penalty supporter, said abolishing it was morally right. He cited the possibility of irrevocable mistakes. Since 1973, at least 185 prisoners on death row, including 10 from Pennsylvania, have been exonerated.

Pennsylvania’s death row, with about 100 prisoners, is one of the nation’s largest. More than half of the prisoners are Black, in a state in which African Americans make up only 12% of the population.

(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; US: Pennsylvania; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: abolition; appeals; crime; deathpenalty; deathrow; electionfraud; executions; exonerations; fakegovernor; harrisburg; joshshapiro; legislature; pennsylvania; race; ralphnortham; spending; stolenelection; virginia; voterfraud
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1 posted on 02/20/2023 5:53:07 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Shapiro, Krazner, Soros, the wrecking balls of Pennsylvania


2 posted on 02/20/2023 5:55:46 AM PST by euram (allALL)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The young policeman just murdered at Temple must be proof


3 posted on 02/20/2023 5:56:27 AM PST by combat_boots
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

How can it be costly when they don’t even prosecute murders in PA?


4 posted on 02/20/2023 5:57:45 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
If the death penalty is "costly and ineffective", it's simply because government bureaucracies have deliberately made it so.

As for "immoral", one has to question such a judgement when it's rendered by some of the most immoral people to ever hold office.

5 posted on 02/20/2023 5:58:37 AM PST by Joe Brower ("Might we not live in a nobler dream than this?" -- John Ruskin)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

They revealed the reason for this: too many murderers are of one race. They prefer to let them live and kill some more.

Insanity. Admit the truth and act accordingly.


6 posted on 02/20/2023 6:00:12 AM PST by I want the USA back (News media are pond scum. My pronouns: Haha, heehee, hoho, hoo hoo. )
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To: lightman

Ping.


7 posted on 02/20/2023 6:03:30 AM PST by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Shapiro should just release murderers and let them kill his family members.


8 posted on 02/20/2023 6:06:29 AM PST by chopperk ( )
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Our government doesn’t have the moral courage to apply the death penalty, with some exceptions. However, even in my state, where there were nearly zero executions, threat of it got a lot of pleas to life without parole. Now mass killers and child killers have nothing to lose by going to a lengthy expensive trial.


9 posted on 02/20/2023 6:06:34 AM PST by Spok (They lie, we know they lie, and they know that they we know they are lying. And still they lie.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

There is not a dem in the country who would not give up their seat before voting against abortion and yet totally opposes the death penalty. This has been proof positive that we have been in a spritual war for a generation now. There is not a single rational explanation how an entire group of people can be wrong on every single issue. This is biblically explained as a reprobate mind. You can chose to believe in a spiritual world or not, but you can’t deny the facts of our physical world we live in now. There is no hope for us outside of God, and the only hope for our country is in God choosing to delay the inevitable.


10 posted on 02/20/2023 6:07:33 AM PST by pghbjugop
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

> Mr. Shapiro signaled that getting state government out of the business of killing people will be a priority. <

If an execution is legalized murder, then an imprisonment is legalized kidnapping.

Perhaps Pennsylvania should get out of the kidnapping business, too. Close all the prisons and just issue convicted criminals a strongly worded letter of reprimand.

Oh, and all that “let the punishment fit the crime” stuff? Forget about that. It makes too much sense.


11 posted on 02/20/2023 6:08:02 AM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

He is on the right subject, but his point is wrong. We should impose the death penalty on drug dealers, cop killers, and rapists of young children, as well as on murderers, and we should carry it out quickly.


12 posted on 02/20/2023 6:09:21 AM PST by Cincinnatus.45-70 (What do DemocRats enjoy more than a truckload of dead babies? Unloading them with a pitchfork!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“More than half of the prisoners are Black, in a state in which African Americans make up only 12% of the population.”

Overachievers for sure.


13 posted on 02/20/2023 6:09:49 AM PST by READINABLUESTATE
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“In remarks at Mosaic Community Church in Philadelphia...”

I guess that separation of church and state thing is just for enemies of the left.


14 posted on 02/20/2023 6:10:24 AM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

It is authorized in The Word of God, and therefore not immoral.

Problem is, we don’t use it as directed (Leviticus 20):

9 “‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head.

10 “‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.

11 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

12 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.

13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

14 “‘If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.

15 “‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.

16 “‘If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.


15 posted on 02/20/2023 6:17:15 AM PST by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Militia to the border! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Um, what’s a bullet cost?

/s

Then there’s the question of prosecutorial and judicial accountability...


16 posted on 02/20/2023 6:23:18 AM PST by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Shapiro wants to be the first Jewish POTUS.

Everything he does will be aimed toward that.

This move is to appease his base.

Remember, Shapiro is a Soros AG and has relaxed criminal prosecutions in Pennsylvania before running for governor.

Shapiro also fought vigorously for the ballot harvesting and mail in ballot laws. He defended them every time they were challenged and stopped Trump from recounting the 2020 election.

Keep an eye on Shapiro


17 posted on 02/20/2023 6:24:52 AM PST by Erik Latranyi (Make America Florida)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
I fully support Shapiro on this.

Federal and state prosecutors no longer have the moral authority to put people in jail -- let alone execute them.

18 posted on 02/20/2023 6:29:43 AM PST by Alberta's Child
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To: fatima; Fresh Wind; st.eqed; xsmommy; House Atreides; Nowhere Man; PaulZe; brityank; Physicist; ...

Pennsylvania Ping!

Please ping me with articles of interest.

FReepmail me to be added to the list.

Tommie ("the Commie") Wolf's Third Term.
The call for abolishing the death penalty is an insult to the families of the three law enforcement officers who have been gunned down in the line of duty since the beginning of the new year.

19 posted on 02/20/2023 7:01:33 AM PST by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Call me when all the prisoners executed by the state in the last 20 years reaches the number of babies killed by a single Planned Parenthood on a single Tuesday morning.


20 posted on 02/20/2023 7:01:41 AM PST by MMusson
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