Gov. Eric Holcomb announced June 26 the state intends to resume executions, with the first being Joseph Corcoran, who was convicted of four murders in 1997.
If carried out, it would be the first execution by the state since 2009.
The Libertarian Party of Indiana strongly opposes this and every execution carried out by the state.
The government should not be in the business of killing people, no matter how heinous the crime.
The Libertarian Party of Indiana affirms the principle “that no person or institution, public or private, has the right to initiate physical force or fraud against another person, and that all people are bound, without contract, to abstain from infringing upon the natural rights of other people.”
There is no greater initiation of physical force than ending someone’s life, and the primary natural right government exists to protect is the right to life.
The Libertarian Party platform is much more direct: “We oppose the administration of the death penalty by the state.”
A state that has the power to arrest, try, convict and execute within the same judicial system is too much power without enough checks and balances. No matter how awful the crime committed, the death penalty is final, and there are more humane ways of punishing convicted criminals.
One significant problem is the possibility of innocent people being convicted and thus executed. According to The Death Penalty Information Center, at least 190 people have been exonerated from death row in the United States since 1973. A 2014 study led by Samuel Gross conservatively estimated that 4.1% of all death row defendants are innocent and would have been exonerated had they not been killed by the state.
“If we execute even one innocent person, then we are no better than the murderers the state says deserves to be executed,” Libertarian Party of Indiana chair Evan McMahon said.
Due to the additional legal processes involved in carrying them out, death penalty cases, on average, cost taxpayers more than $700,000 than other criminal cases according to 15 state studies of death penalty cases, creating another reason why the state should not be carrying them out.
Those convicted of capital offenses have been in prison serving life sentences, and have been doing so for the last 15 years without state-sponsored executions.
A government whose primary function is to protect life should not be in the business of ending it, especially given the United States Constitution protects the accused from cruel and unusual punishment. There is no more cruel punishment than putting someone to death.
The state, simply put, should not be killing its citizens. The Libertarian Party of Indiana calls upon Governor Holcomb and the State of Indiana to halt all planned executions and, furthermore, upon the General Assembly to ban the use of the death penalty in Indiana.