The death penalty is a complicated and morally debatable issue. We’ve seen throughout history that our complex justice system has put to death, innocent people. Even when a person is guilty of their crimes, it’s still tough to argue that “flooding of someone’s veins with state-sanctioned poison” isn’t morally questionable.

Indiana should not support the death sentence to be carried out in the federal prison in Terre Haute. According to one chaplain in the St. Joseph County Jail in South Bend, who has spent eight years visiting death row prisoners in the state prison in Michigan City, he does not believe in the death penalty. He shared how one death row inmate in Arkansas declared, “I executed the man I was long ago, the state only takes me out of the cage.”

So why are talks of the death penalty still being considered by the federal government of Indiana? Other states have outlawed the death penalty, including Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Indiana should follow the example set by these states.

In Washington, eight people remain on death row. However, execution has not been carried out since 2010. The Supreme Court of the State of Washington unanimously decided in 2019 that the use of capital punishment is unconstitutional under its state constitution.

Indiana has several people on death row, but that number is relatively low. No execution has been carried out in 10 years.

The state can offer no justifiable reason for using the death penalty. It is time to get rid of it finally.