Let your Representative know that you oppose the Death Penalty and support HB 2153!

This week, the Missouri House Committee on Corrections and Public Institutions heard a bill that could end capital punishment in the state. HB 2153, sponsored by Rep. Jim Murphy (R-St. Louis), would make life without parole the only sentencing option for first-degree murder. 

This is the first time in a decade that this bill has been heard in a legislative committee. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, even one who has done great evil. 

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II pointed out that because of improvements to the modern penal system, instances where the death penalty was necessary to protect society have become “very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” In his historic address in St. Louis in 1999, the Holy Father renewed his call to end the death penalty, calling it “cruel and unnecessary." 

Aside from the moral dimensions, the death penalty has proven to be a flawed system that does not deter crime, is more costly to administer than non-death penalty cases, and is subject to racial and geographic bias. The death penalty also carries the risk of irreversible error. Since 1973, over 200 people sentenced to death have been exonerated, including four in Missouri. 

Take Action Today!

Click “Send Message” to contact your Representative and urge them to take up and vote “Yes” on HB 2153 so that the bill can be debated by the full House. 

MCC doc# 326-09