Governor puts off executions

[Denise]

Governor puts off executions, says system 'riddled with flaws'

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia praised the announcement by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf Feb. 13 that he is granting a reprieve for death-row inmate Terrence Williams, who was scheduled to be executed March 4. In a memo, Wolf said he would extend the reprieve to each of the 186 inmates on the state's death row as their scheduled executions approach, all pending the outcome of a study of the use of the death penalty in Pennsylvania. Archbishop Chaput said he was grateful to Wolf "for choosing to take a deeper look into these studies and I pray we can find a better way to punish those who are guilty of these crimes. Turning away from capital punishment does not diminish our support for the families of murder victims. They bear a terrible burden of grief and they rightly demand justice," said the archbishop. "But killing the guilty does not honor the dead nor does it ennoble the living. When we take a guilty person's life we only add to the violence in an already violent culture and we demean our own dignity in the process." Wolf said there was no question Williams was guilty of the 1984 murder he committed at age 18 and for which he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986. But the governor said he was granting the reprieve "because the capital punishment system has significant and widely recognized defects."