South Dakota’s anti-death penalty movement needs to unite before any change can happen in the state, said Travis Schulze, Amnesty International South Dakota’s Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator.
Schulze was the keynote speaker for USD’s Amnesty International Chapter, a group which has been active in lobbying against the death penalty.
“The anti-death penalty movement in South Dakota needs to be able to put pressure on individuals of big-government,” Schulze said. “And currently, as an organized movement, they’re unable to.”
USD Amnesty International president Danielle Knutson said the USD AI chapter has been heavily involved with the death penalty movement ever since its foundation in 2004.
“At our group’s inception, it was a big cause for us,” Knutson said. “We rallied in Pierre, we did a lot of lobbying and our group was instrumental in outlawing the juvenile death penalty in the state.”
Schulze said the state lacks a single-issue group to challenge the death penalty, instead of general justice groups such as the Peace and Justice Center, ACLU and Amnesty International, which also deal with other issues. Schulze said in many cases, these larger groups are too hampered by the politics surrounding them to effect death penalty change.
Though Knutson said despite a lack of state groups specifically focused on the abolition of the death penalty the movement to abolish capital punishment is growing in South Dakota.
“I see the movement growing even more,” Knutson said. “I think the focus as of right now should be learning how to grow the movement and make (abolishing the death penalty) a real possibility.”
Knutson said with time, she sees South Dakota abolishing the death penalty.
“It has the potential to happen as long as we keep working at the cause,” Knutson said.
Schulze said an abolition movements would be a struggle.
“It will be hard to abolish the death penalty in South Dakota because it’s an extremely conservative state and currently is very much in support of the death penalty,” Schulze said. “But I think there are many good arguments that can be made to the people regarding cost and ineffectiveness.”
Evidence of the struggle that lies ahead for anti-capital punishment groups, are people like Sophomore Tanner Hento, who said the penalty should be expanded rather than repealed.
“I think we should use it more often, but not so extreme where if someone steals something they should be executed,” Hento said. “But when it comes to somebody who rapes a woman or kills a child, I don’t know how anyone could justify them being alive.”
Hento said the current process of executing inmates on death row is too lengthy but the penalty should remain in place to deter a rising crime rate.
“When someone is put on death row, I still think it takes too long,” Hento said. “With the crime rate going up, some action needs to be taken, and I don’t think taking away the death penalty is going to lower it at all.”
Schulze said he is working with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in an effort to create a coalition within South Dakota of groups such as the ACLU, Amnesty International, the Catholic Diocese and other churches.
“Hopefully when you have a group supported by that many people, we’ll be able to reach out and have events such as this throughout the state,” Schulze said. “Then we could get our message out and educate the people enough so they’ll realize the death penalty simply serves no purpose and wastes our tax dollars every year.”
USD’s AI chapter currently has 15 members on campus and has brought in two previous speakers this year. Knutson said Schulze was brought in because the death penalty is a vital issue in the area.
Be the first to comment on this article!