The governor's decision to pause executions is the right decision for our state.
In 2011, the Pennsylvania Senate passed Senate Resolution No. 6, “Directing the Joint State Government Commission to establish a bipartisan task force and an advisory committee to conduct a study of capital punishment in this Commonwealth and to report their findings and recommendations.” The results of the study will be presented to the legislature and the governor. It is only right to pause executions while awaiting this report.
In a series of articles published in December 2014, the Reading Eagle found that Pennsylvania taxpayers have spent over $350 million on the death penalty over a period in which the state has carried out just three executions. All three executions involved inmates who had dropped their appeals. Our system is clearly costly and broken, the governor is right to take a closer look.
Read HR 143:
http://openstates.org/pa/bills/2015-2016/HR143/
