Shapiro calls for abolishing death penalty; Garrity says she supports ‘the law that’s on the books’

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity faced numerous questions during their first and only debate Wednesday night.

One that set them apart, asked by moderators with Harrisburg television station ABC27, was about their views on the death penalty.

“I support the law that’s on the books,” Garrity said.

Pennsylvania law allows for the death penalty, though there have been no executions in the state since 1999.

A spokesperson for Garrity did not respond to a follow-up question clarifying whether she would resume executions for convicts sentenced to death.

After someone is sentenced to death in Pennsylvania, an execution warrant is sent to the governor’s desk. They can sign it, do nothing and allow it to pass to the Secretary of Corrections after 30 days, or issue a reprieve.

In 2015, Gov. Tom Wolf declared a moratorium on executions in the state. Shortly after being sworn in in 2023, Shapiro similarly announced that he would sign a reprieve any time an execution warrant reached his desk as governor.

Despite the moratorium, death penalty-eligible cases are still tried in the state and courts still hand down death sentences, though rarely.

There are 94 inmates in Pennsylvania prisons sentenced to death, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Shapiro said he supports abolishing the death penalty altogether. It’s a position, he said, he’s evolved on over the last decade.

“I ran for attorney general twice in support of the death penalty in the most heinous of cases,” he said. “And then when those cases would reach my desk, more and more, I found that I was unable to pursue capital punishment.”

Shapiro described a conversation with his then-10-year-old son, who asked him whether Pennsylvania had the death penalty.

“Max said to me, ‘Dad, I don’t understand how killing someone as a punishment for them killing someone, somehow makes anything better,’” Shapiro said. “About two weeks into my term as governor, an execution warrant was put on my desk and I couldn’t sign it.”

Debate over the death penalty has garnered attention around the country since the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee last month. After surviving two rounds of lethal injection, Pike was brought to a hospital and intubated in critical condition. After it was announced she was believed to be brain dead, Pike regained consciousness Tuesday. Her attorney has said her recovery could be long.

Pike’s botched execution was the second in Tennessee this year. In May, the execution of inmate Tony Carruthers was halted after workers spent an hour trying to get an IV into his veins to issue a fatal injection.