Conservative death penalty opponents are meeting in Louisiana.
The group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty's first national meeting began Friday in New Orleans and continues through Saturday. The organization's national manager, Hannah Cox, says the meeting has drawn people from 12 states.
Cox calls capital punishment "a failed big government program." The group says it is costly compared to life without parole and is applied unfairly.
Despite a legislative repeal bill's failure in Louisiana this year, Cox says the organization believes it can win support to nix the death penalty in the heavily Catholic state. She noted Pope Francis' 2018 declaration that the death penalty is "inadmissible" in all cases.
She says the organization also sees capital punishment opposition growing in conservative Wyoming and Utah.
