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Momentum to abolish the death penalty picks up among conservatives

LOUISIANA WEEKLY — A gathering of anti-death penalty activists this month in New Orleans was to kick-start a movement to abolish the death penalty at the state level. But those attending are not capital punishment’s typical foes. “I’m a lifetime Republican, a cradle conservative,” E. King Alexander told Facing South. “From a small government perspective, I think the government needs to stay in its lane vis-à-vis the liberties of the people.”

Published

6 years ago

September 22, 2019

Oakland Post

Photo by: Matthew Ansley | unsplash.com

By Olivia Paschal

(Special from Facing South) — A gathering of anti-death penalty activists this month in New Orleans was to kick-start a movement to abolish the death penalty at the state level. But those attending are not capital punishment’s typical foes.

“I’m a lifetime Republican, a cradle conservative,” E. King Alexander told Facing South. “From a small government perspective, I think the government needs to stay in its lane vis-à-vis the liberties of the people.”

A public defender in Louisiana’s Calcasieu Parish and a member of his state Republican Party’s Central Committee, Alexander is a part of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. The national group was launched at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference as a project of Equal Justice USA, a Brooklyn, New York-based nonprofit that works to break cycles of trauma through justice system reforms.

Conservatives Concerned held its first annual national meeting from Sept. 6- 8, giving like-minded anti-death penalty advocates from across the U.S. a chance to meet, network, and begin organizing campaigns in their respective states. People affiliated with the group hold various views on why the death penalty should be abolished. For some, like Alexander, the taking of a life represents government overreach. For others, it’s a cost issue, as carrying out a capital sentence is often more expensive than life imprisonment. And for those like Donald Triplett, the treasurer of North Carolina’s Swain County Republican Party, it’s an extension of their fundamental values.

“I was raised to be pro-life,” Triplett told Facing South. “Around my teenage years, I started questioning — how far does that go?”

Support for capital punishment, once seen as a necessary credential for politicians running on a tough-on-crime platform, has eroded in recent years as evidence has mounted that the death penalty is ineffective at driving down crime rates, unevenly and often arbitrarily applied, and that many innocent people have been sent to death row. According to Gallup, which has asked about the death penalty in its polls since the 1930s, 45 percent of Americans believe the death penalty is imposed unfairly, the highest level since Gallup began asking that question in 2000. In all, 41 percent of Americans now oppose the death penalty for a person convicted of murder — the highest level since 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia briefly struck down capital punishment.

But there’s a deep partisan divide over the death penalty, one that makes its abolition an uphill battle in red states. In 2018, the Pew Research Center found that while just 35 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of independents support the death penalty for people convicted of murder, 77 percent of Republicans favor the policy. While that number might seem high, it represents a 10-point dip from 1996, when 87 percent of Republicans favored capital punishment. Support for the death penalty among self-identified independents, who make up 38 percent of the voting population, is down more than 27 percentage points over the same time period.

The movement to abolish the death penalty continues to gain steam. New Hampshire became the latest state to abolish capital punishment earlier this year, with significant Republican support. Six other states — Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, and Washington — have gotten rid of the death penalty since 2009, two through court rulings declaring state capital punishment laws unconstitutional. Today, 21 states have rejected the death penalty by law, and four more have done so through governor-imposed moratoriums.

But every state in the South except West Virginia still has the death penalty. The region includes two of the three states with the highest death row populations: 349 people in Florida, and 218 in Texas. In Florida, 29 death row prisoners have had their charges dismissed since the 1970s, the most in the country.

Among the factors driving opposition to the death penalty are the dramatic racial disparities in its administration. According to a Facing South analysis of data compiled by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 46 percent of the South’s death row population is Black, although Black people make up less than 20 percent of the region’s total population. Several studies, including one by the federal Government Accountability Office, have shown that murder cases with white victims are more likely to result in capital murder charges and the imposition of the death penalty than those with victims of another race. And all too often, capital trials occur without a true jury of one’s peers: Recent high-profile cases in Mississippi and North Carolina have accused prosecutors of excluding black people from death penalty juries based on their race.

“The death penalty continues to exist in the parts of America it exists in because of racism and revenge,” said Kenneth Reams, the founder of Who Decides, a nonprofit that educates people about the history of the death penalty. He is also a current resident of Arkansas’ death row; though the state’s Supreme Court reversed his death sentence last year, he remains there pending further proceedings. “It’s not just racism, but poverty. The death penalty affects people in our society who are uneducated and poor.”

Preaching outside the choir

It’s no accident that Conservatives Concerned’s first national meeting was set for Louisiana. A coalition of groups from across that state’s political spectrum recently came together to pass Amendment 2 overturning a Jim Crow-era law that allowed people to be convicted of felonies by non-unanimous juries. Alexander was part of that coalition, as was tea party Republican Rob Maness, a former U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana and a retired Air Force colonel who sits on his parish’s GOP executive committee.

“We had to build a team of not just conservatives, but also independent and moderate-type folks, and then the very liberal side of the Democrats, and independents too, so across the spectrum of ideology,” Maness told Facing South. “We were able to build that team, because [reversing the amendment] was the right thing to do.”

The measure had support from the state Republican and Democratic parties, from a slew of criminal justice reform organizations, and from the Louisiana branch of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that has pushed for criminal justice reform in other states as well. Advocates hope they can keep this coalition together to push for the abolition of the death penalty, either by way of another constitutional amendment or with a state statute.

The meeting in New Orleans was to connect Louisiana anti-death penalty conservatives with each other and with others like them around the country. It will also serve as a training ground to get other state-based movements up and running with sessions teaching advocates how to talk to legislators and how to carry out grassroots organizing targeted at conservatives.

The attendees know their views are out of step with most Republicans; Maness said that if he decides to run for office again he’s certain GOP voters will “hold me accountable” for not being sufficiently “law-and-order.” But they hope to reach people around the South who might be predisposed to discount the arguments of liberals.

“If you’re a Democrat you’re preaching to the choir,” said Alexander. “Where we need to make progress is with Republicans.”

That’s been the focus in Tennessee, said Amy Lawrence, who leads the state’s chapter of Conservatives Concerned. People who have been in conservative circles their entire life may not have thought about the death penalty from a pro-life lens, or may not be aware of the expense of sentencing someone to death, she said.

“We still have some work to do,” Lawrence said. “We have lawmakers who say, ‘I get it, I understand that there are flaws with the death penalty, that it’s an exorbitant cost, that it’s an arbitrary system.’” There’s still a stigma associated with being anti-death penalty in Republican circles, however, and some lawmakers fear that vocalizing their opposition to capital punishment could mean losing their seat, said Lawrence and other advocates.

But that’s beginning to shift. In 10 states this year, three of them in the South, Republican legislators sponsored bills to repeal the death penalty. In Georgia, a bipartisan group of three Republican and three Democratic legislators introduced a bill in April that would abolish capital punishment and change the sentences of the state’s 55 death row inmates to life without parole. Though it was introduced too late to advance this session, its timing was aimed to spark debate next year. In Louisiana, Republican state Sen. Dan Claitor put forward a constitutional amendment to get rid of the death penalty, but it was rejected by the legislative body. And in Kentucky, Republican House Majority Whip Chad McCoy introduced a bill to repeal the state’s death penalty. Though it gained several co-sponsors, including other Republican state legislators, it died in committee.

“If we can get lucky enough to get one of the states in the South to seriously look at capital punishment, to simply put a moratorium on it, that would be a start,” said Reams. “If we could get one state in the South to abolish it, I think it would open the door.”

This article originally appeared in the online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies, www.southernstudies.org. The Institute for Southern Studies is a nonprofit research and media center that exposes injustice, strengthens democracy and builds a community for change in the South.

This article originally published in the September 16, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

This article originally appeared in The Louisiana Weekly. LOUISIANA WEEKLY

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A Nation in Freefall While the Powerful Feast: Trump Calls Affordability a ‘Con Job’

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — There are seasons in this country when the struggle of ordinary Americans is not merely a condition but a kind of weather that settles over everything.

Published

4 weeks ago

December 3, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

There are seasons in this country when the struggle of ordinary Americans is not merely a condition but a kind of weather that settles over everything. It enters the grocery aisle, the overdue bill, the rent notice, and the long nights spent calculating how to get through the next week. The latest numbers show that this season has not passed. It has deepened.

Private employers cut 32,000 jobs in November, according to ADP. Because the nation has been hemorrhaging jobs since President Trump took office, the administration has halted publishing the traditional monthly report. The ADP report revealed that small businesses suffered the heaviest losses. Establishments with fewer than 50 workers shed 120,000 positions, including 74,000 from companies with 20 to 49 workers. Larger firms added 90,000 jobs, widening the split between those rising and those falling.

Meanwhile, wealth continues to climb for the few who already possess most of it. Federal Reserve data shows the top 1 percent now holds $52 trillion. The top 10 percent added $5 trillion in the second quarter alone. The bottom half gained only 6 percent over the past year, a number so small it fades beside the towering fortunes above it.

“Less educated and poorer people tend to make worse mistakes,” John Campbell said to CBS News, while noting that the complexity of the system leaves many families lost before they even begin. Campbell, a Harvard University economist and coauthor of a book examining the country’s broken personal finance structure, pointed to a system built to confuse and punish those who lack time, training, or access.

“Creditors are just breathing down their necks,” Carol Fox told Bloomberg News, while noting that rising borrowing costs, shrinking consumer spending, and trade battles under the current administration have left owners desperate. Fox serves as a court-appointed Subchapter V trustee in Southern Florida and has watched the crisis unfold case by case.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump told those present that affordability “doesn’t mean anything to anybody.” He added that Democrats created a “con job” to mislead the public.

However, more than $30 million in taxpayer funds reportedly have supported his golf travel. Reports show Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel have also made extensive use of private jets through government and political networks. The administration approved a $40 billion bailout of Argentina. The president’s wealthy donors recently gathered for a dinner celebrating his planned $300 million White House ballroom.

During an appearance on CNBC, Mark Zandi, an economist, warned that the country could face serious economic threats. “We have learned that people make many mistakes,” Campbell added. “And particularly, sadly, less educated and poorer people tend to make worse mistakes.”

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The Numbers Behind the Myth of the Hundred Million Dollar Contract

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Odell Beckham Jr. did not spark controversy on purpose. He sat on The Pivot Podcast and tried to explain the math behind a deal that looks limitless from the outside but shrinks fast once the system takes its cut.

Published

4 weeks ago

December 3, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Odell Beckham Jr. did not spark controversy on purpose. He sat on The Pivot Podcast and tried to explain the math behind a deal that looks limitless from the outside but shrinks fast once the system takes its cut. He looked into the camera and tried to offer a truth most fans never hear. “You give somebody a five-year $100 million contract, right? What is it really? It is five years for sixty. You are getting taxed. Do the math. That is twelve million a year that you have to spend, use, save, invest, flaunt,” said Beckham. He added that buying a car, buying his mother a house, and covering the costs of life all chip away at what people assume lasts forever.

The reaction was instant. Many heard entitlement. Many heard a millionaire complaining. What they missed was a glimpse into a professional world built on big numbers up front and a quiet erasing of those numbers behind the scenes.

The tax data in Beckham’s world is not speculation. SmartAsset’s research shows that top NFL players often lose close to half their income to federal taxes, state taxes, and local taxes. The analysis explains that athletes in California face a state rate of 13.3 percent and that players are also taxed in every state where they play road games, a structure widely known as the jock tax. For many players, that means filing up to ten separate returns and facing a combined tax burden that reaches or exceeds 50 percent.

A look across the league paints the same picture. The research lists star players in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, all giving up between 43 and 47 percent of their football income before they ever touch a dollar. Star quarterback Phillip Rivers, at one point, was projected to lose half of his playing income to taxes alone.

A second financial breakdown from MGO CPA shows that the problem does not only affect the highest earners. A $1 million salary falls to about $529,000 after federal taxes, state and city taxes, an agent fee, and a contract deduction. According to that analysis, professional athletes typically take home around half of their contract value, and that is before rent, meals, training, travel, and support obligations are counted.

The structure of professional sports contracts adds another layer. A study of major deals across MLB, the NBA, and the NFL notes that long-term agreements lose value over time because the dollar today has more power than the dollar paid in the future. Even the largest deals shrink once adjusted for time. The study explains that contract size alone does not guarantee financial success and that structure and timing play a crucial role in a player’s long-term outcomes.

Beckham has also faced headlines claiming he is “on the brink of bankruptcy despite earning over one hundred million” in his career. Those reports repeated his statement that “after taxes, it is only sixty million” and captured the disbelief from fans who could not understand how money at that level could ever tighten.

Other reactions lacked nuance. One article wrote that no one could relate to any struggle on eight million dollars a year. Another described his approach as “the definition of a new-money move” and argued that it signaled poor financial choices and inflated spending.

But the underlying truth reaches far beyond Beckham. Professional athletes enter sudden wealth without preparation. They carry the weight of family support. They navigate teams, agents, advisors, and expectations from every direction. Their earning window is brief. Their career can end in a moment. Their income is fragmented, taxed, and carved up before the public ever sees the real number.

The math is unflinching. Twenty million dollars becomes something closer to $8 million after federal taxes, state taxes, jock taxes, agent fees, training costs, and family responsibilities. Over five years, that is about $40 million of real, spendable income. It is transformative money, but not infinite. Not guaranteed. Not protected.

Beckham offered a question at the heart of this entire debate. “Can you make that last forever?”

Stacy M. Brown

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FBI Report Warns of Fear, Paralysis, And Political Turmoil Under Director Kash Patel

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Six months into Kash Patel’s tenure as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a newly compiled internal report from a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI agents and analysts delivers a stark warning about what the Bureau has become under his leadership.

Published

4 weeks ago

December 2, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown

Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Six months into Kash Patel’s tenure as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a newly compiled internal report from a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI agents and analysts delivers a stark warning about what the Bureau has become under his leadership. The 115-page document, submitted to Congress this month, is built entirely on verified reporting from inside field offices across the country and paints a picture of an agency gripped by fear, divided by ideology, and drifting without direction.

The report’s authors write that they launched their inquiry after receiving troubling accounts from inside the Bureau only four months into Patel’s tenure. They describe their goal as a pulse check on whether the ninth FBI director was reforming the Bureau or destabilizing it. Their conclusion: the preliminary findings were discouraging.

Reports Describe Widespread Internal Distrust and Open Hostility Toward President Trump

Sources across the country told investigators that a large number of FBI employees openly express hostility toward President Donald Trump. One source reported seeing an “increasing number of FBI Special Agents who dislike the President,” adding that these employees were exhibiting what they called “TDS” and had lost “their ability to think critically about an issue and distinguish fact from fiction.” Another source described employees making off-color comments about the administration during office conversations.

The sentiment reportedly extends beyond domestic lines. Law enforcement and intelligence partners in allied countries have privately expressed fear that the Trump administration could damage long-term international cooperation according to a sub-source who reported those concerns directly to investigators.

Pardon Backlash and Fear of Retaliation

The President’s January 20 pardons of individuals convicted for their roles in the January 6 attack ignited what the report calls demoralization inside the Bureau. One FBI employee said they were “demoralized” that individuals “rightfully convicted” were pardoned and feared that some of those individuals or their supporters might target them or their family for carrying out their duties. Another source described widespread anger that lists of personnel who worked on January 6 investigations had been provided to the Justice Department for review, noting that agents “were just following orders” and now worry those lists could leak publicly.

Morale In Decline

Morale among FBI employees appears to be sinking fast. There were a few scattered positive notes, but the weight of the reporting describes morale as low, bad, or terrible. Agents with more than a decade of service told investigators they feel marginalized or ignored. Some are counting the days until they can retire. One even uses a countdown app on their phone.

Culture Of Fear

Layered over that unhappiness is something far more corrosive. A culture of fear. Sources say Patel, though personable, created mistrust from the start because of harsh remarks he made about the FBI before taking office. Agents took those comments personally. They now work in an atmosphere where employees keep their heads down and speak carefully. Managers wait for directions because they are afraid a wrong move could cost them their jobs. One source said agents dread coming to work because nobody knows who will be reassigned or fired next.

Leadership Concerns

The report also paints a picture of leaders unprepared for the jobs they hold. Multiple sources said Patel is in over his head and lacks the breadth of experience required to understand the Bureau’s complex programs. Some said Deputy Director Dan Bongino should never have been appointed because the role requires deep institutional knowledge of FBI operations. A sub-source recounted Bongino telling employees during a field office visit that “the truth is for chumps.” Employees who heard it were stunned and offended.

Social Media and Communication Breakdowns

Communication inside the Bureau has become another source of frustration. Sources said Patel and Bongino spend too much time posting on social media and not enough time communicating with employees in clear and official ways. Several told investigators they learn more about FBI operations from tweets than from internal channels.

ICE Assignments Raise Alarm

Nothing has sparked more frustration inside the FBI than the orders requiring agents to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The reporting shows widespread resentment and fear over these assignments. Agents say they have little training in immigration law and were ordered into operations without proper planning. Some said they were put in tactically unsafe positions. They also warned that being pulled away from counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations threatens national security. One sub-source asked, “If we’re not working CT and CI, then who is?”

DEI Program Removal

Even the future of diversity programs became a point of division. Some agents praised Patel’s removal of DEI initiatives. Others said the old system left them afraid to speak honestly because they worried about being labeled racist. The reporting shows a deep and unresolved conflict over whether DEI strengthened the organization or weakened it.

Notable Incidents

The document also details several incidents that have become part of FBI lore. Patel ordered all employees to remove pronouns and personal messages from their email signatures yet used the number nine in his own. Agents laughed at what they saw as hypocrisy. In another episode, FBI employees who discussed Patel’s request for an FBI-issued firearm were ordered to take polygraph examinations, which one respected source described as punitive. And in Utah, Patel refused to exit a plane without a medium-sized FBI raid jacket. A team scrambled to find one and finally secured a female agent’s jacket. Patel still refused to step out until patches were added. SWAT members removed patches from their own uniforms to satisfy the demand.

A Bureau at a Crossroad

The Alliance warns that the Bureau stands at a difficult crossroads. They write that the FBI faces some of the most daunting challenges in its history. But even in despair, a few voices say something different. One veteran source said “It is early, but most can see the mission is now the priority. Case work and threats are the focus again. Reform is headed in the right direction.”