Georgia conservatives launch new efforts to re-examine death penalty

Georgia Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a network of conservatives questioning the alignment of capital punishment with their conservative principles, officially launched last week with a news conference at the Georgia State Capitol.

“Georgia may have led the nation in executions in 2016, but our state is actually moving away from the death penalty,” said Marc Hyden, EJUSA’s National Coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty and a longtime Georgia resident. “Georgia conservatives stand for life, fiscal responsibility, and limited government, but the death penalty violates these core conservative tenets.”

Marc was joined on stage by a current state legislator, a former congressional district chairperson for the GOP, the COO and Chairperson of two local conservative think tanks, the former president of a local pro-life organizations, and the past chair of a local college Republicans group.

You can watch the full press conference here:

News outlets in Georgia and all around the country have picked up on the story, enticed by the fact that Georgia led the U.S. in executions in 2016, and now a group of conservatives is calling the death penalty a failed, wasteful, big government program. Here’s just some of the coverage:

Even the L.A. Times picked up the story in its latest editorial about the death penalty, and Conservatives Concerned National Coordinator Marc Hyden had an op-ed published in the Newnan Times-Herald, “The death penalty is Georgia’s past, not its future.”


Sarah Craft

Sarah Craft is the program director of EJUSA's program to end the death penalty in the United States. She has worked with EJUSA’s state partners all over the country to develop winning strategies for their campaigns. Read More