"Anti-death penalty movement wooing conservatives"

The title of this post is the headline of this notable article in today's Washington Post.  Here are excerpts:

The Roman Catholic church has long been an organized and vocal critic of the death penalty, but [a] new effort is trying to bring in other conservatives shaped by both evangelical faiths and political ideology.  Now, liberals and conservatives — longtime opponents on contentious social issues from abortion to capital punishment — are working together in a time of strong political polarization.

The effort took center stage at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's annual conference over the weekend in Louisville....  Shari Silberstein, executive director of Equal Justice USA, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based anti-death penalty organization, said working with conservatives is about common sense and common ground. "It's not really an ideological question," Silberstein said.

The effort has been backed by Richard Viguerie, a fundraiser and activist considered the father of the modern conservative movement.  Viguerie, in a July 2009 essay in Sojourners magazine, wrote that executions are supposed to take the life of the guilty — but noted there are enough flaws in the system to fear an innocent person has been put to death.

Viguerie noted that death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence, raising the prospect that prosecutors and juries made mistakes in cases without scientific evidence and in cases that predate the science.  "To conservatives, that should be deemed as immoral as abortion," Viguerie wrote.

And as lawmakers continue to slash budgets because of the slumping economy, many are wondering whether the price tag of the death penalty and the resulting drawn-out legal process is worthwhile.  The winding series of appeals often runs up huge legal bills for states, which many advocates say is often more expensive than the cost of life imprisonment....

Not all conservatives are open to [this] pitch. Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and an outspoken capital punishment supporter, said most of the costs of a death penalty case come from "exhaustive investigation" of the defendant's background and should be cut out.  "I think those who are falling for this line are misguided," Scheidegger said.  "The death penalty does not need to cost more than life imprisonment."

While there are no hard numbers on how many conservatives have joined the anti-capital punishment campaign, those involved say it's a growing movement.