Press "Enter" to skip to content

Anti-death penalty group releases first annual report

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A group that advocates against the death penalty released their first of what they hope becomes an annual report on capital punishment in the state of Missouri.

Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty released their findings Wednesday morning in an examination of the state of the death penalty in Missouri. Staci Pratt, the state coordinator for the group, said the report showed signs of optimism for opponents to capital punishment.

Pratt
Pratt

“One of the things to hold onto is that Missouri is evolving,” she said. “While we did see six executions this year, we saw no new death sentences. There is beginning to be a sense of change in Missouri and whether or not the death penalty is appropriate.”

Pratt clarified by saying that Missouri is currently going through a pause because the executions that take place today come as a result from actions 15 or more years ago. Problems that arose with those cases; executing the mentally incompetent, prisoners indicating reform, those sentenced by racially biased juries, etc.; have garnered more attention and criticism. Pratt added that conservatives and evangelicals, groups traditionally in favor of capital punishment, have also begun to question the process much more in recent years.

However, Pratt notes that Missouri still has a long way to go to reach their end goal, namely ending the death penalty in the state. The Death Penalty Information Center noted that Missouri was one of three states, the other two being Texas and Georgia, that made up nearly 90 percent of all executions in 2015 (Texas made up almost 50 percent alone).

The report also found that the death penalty contained a racial bias with black offenders receiving that sentence at a disproportionate rate to their population across the state. Homicides involving white male victims are also seven times more likely to result in an execution than those involving black male victims, and that figure doubles when the victim is a white female.