In her first years attending a fast marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that resumed the modern-day death penalty in the United States, SueZann Bosler was still on medication to treat the effects of being stabbed in the head by the same man who murdered her father, Bill Bosler, in 1986.

To honor the wishes of her father — a Church of the Brethren minister in Florida who was against the death penalty — Bosler worked for a decade to commute the death sentence of the man who killed her father and injured her, despite initially struggling to forgive him. “ It saved my life, forgiveness,” she said.

On July 2, the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia decision that reignited the modern era of the death penalty in the United States, Bosler was on her fourth day of fasting. She had been taking shifts as part of the “Starvin’ for Justice” anti-capital punishment protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court to try to convince passersby to join her in opposition.

But the solidarity of about 85 protesters involved made the time joyful, Bosler said, because she’s often the sole person protesting outside the Florida Supreme Court.

In the 50 years since the Gregg decision, faith-based opposition to the death penalty has been a cornerstone of successful abolition and commutation campaigns — even as religious Americans as a whole tend to support the death penalty.

“Faith leaders have been instrumental” in death penalty abolition in New Jersey, New Mexico, Connecticut, Virginia and several other states, according to Abraham Bonowitz, the executive director of Death Penalty Action and co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.

Bonowitz also credited faith leaders like Sharon Risher, whose family members were murdered at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, with successfully pressuring President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of 37 people on death row in the last days of his presidency. Emanuel’s shooter was not among those commutations.

“God commands us not to kill,” said Art Laffin, an organizer of the Starvin’ for Justice protest and member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community. “It’s not an option, it’s a command.”

Executions in the U.S. surged to 47 last year, largely driven by an increase in Florida, with 19. Death penalty abolitionists are feeling renewed energy and searching for any openings they can find to prevent executions.

The death sentence remains a legal punishment in 27 states. Of those, four states — California, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ohio — have instated execution moratoriums in the last few years. In the 23 states where the death penalty remains, it continues to emerge as a topic of debate, especially amid criticism over botched executions.

The federal death penalty applies to all 50 states but is rarely used. Since 1988, there have been 16 federal executions, 13 of which occurred in a six-month period between July 2020 and January 2021.

In Sacramento on June 30, faith leaders and activists delivered petitions from more than 25,000 people urging California Gov. Gavin Newsom to commute the sentences of all those on death row in the state, alongside 565 LED candles representing their lives.

Faith-based activists are also ramping up pressure on Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to commute sentences as his term ends this year. Bonowitz said DeWine sometimes attends Mass at the same Columbus parish as his wife, Bonowitz said. The church, St. Catherine, prays for the abolition of the death penalty at every Mass.

In Florida, Catholic bishops have written repeatedly to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is Catholic, asking him to stay the executions of 22 people in the last year.

In Washington, the activists marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision by appealing to the consciences of the justices inside, six of whom are Catholic.

On July 2, 1976, in a 7-to-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled capital punishment did not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The decision reversed the court’s 1972 ruling in Furman v. Georgia, which had halted executions nationwide. Since Gregg v. Georgia, “1,670 people made in God’s image and likeness have been executed,” Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, an anti-death penalty organization, said in a statement. She added that more than 200 people on death row have been exonerated since 1973.

In the history of capital punishment, Black Americans have been disproportionately sentenced to death, especially when the crime involves White victims. The majority of state executions since 1976 have occurred in the U.S. South. As a result, scholars and activists have deemed capital punishment a descendant of lynching and racial oppression.

Religion has also been present in support for capital punishment. A 2021 Pew Research Center report found that a majority of religiously affiliated U.S. adults, especially Protestants, favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder.

Shane Claiborne, the author of Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us, told RNS, “The death penalty wouldn’t stand a chance in America without the support of Christians.”

Claiborne, co-founder of the Christian social justice group Red Letter Christians and a key figure in the religious left, said he saw opportunities to work with conservatives on the issue.

“There’s something deeper that should connect us, which is this profound sense that no one’s beyond redemption and that our government is not infallible, so we shouldn’t entrust it with this power,” he said.