News Release: Catholic Conference Vows Vigorous Opposition to Death Penalty Resolution

(Lansing, Mich.) — Michigan Catholic Conference President and CEO Paul A. Long offered the following comments today after the introduction of Senate Joint Resolution G, which would allow for the death penalty for first degree murder of a peace or corrections officer while in the line of duty:

“The death penalty is an antiquated and inhumane method of punishment representing nothing more than retaliation and more violence. It has no place in a civilized society. The prohibition against capital punishment in the 1963 Michigan Constitution is clear: the state has no right to decide who lives and who dies. For a government with the power to kill is a government with too much power. Society is strongly protected from those who commit murder with the life without the chance for parole sentence. Michigan Catholic Conference will devote the full weight of its organization to oppose and defeat any effort to allow for state-sanctioned murder.”

Michigan Catholic Conference is the official public policy voice of the Catholic Church in this state.

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