Attempts Both to Repeal and to Restore Death-Penalty Statutes Fail in Legislatures Across the Country

In Washington and Utah, bipar­ti­san or Republican-led efforts at death-penal­ty repeal fell short, a month after death-penal­ty pro­po­nents aban­doned efforts to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in New Mexico and Iowa. In Washington, a bipar­ti­san push to replace the death penal­ty with life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of release was intro­duced at the request of Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson with the sup­port of his Republican pre­de­ces­sor Rob McKenna, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee, and King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, a Republican from the state’s largest coun­ty. With key votes from five Republican sen­a­tors, SB 6052 passed the state sen­ate on February 15 by a vote of 26 – 22 and was favor­ably report­ed out of the House Judiciary Committee, but the Democratic lead­er­ship in the House did not sched­ule it for a vote before the leg­isla­tive ses­sion end­ed. Ferguson said he was ​“deeply dis­ap­point­ed” by the bill’s fail­ure, but said his dis­ap­point­ment was ​“tem­pered some­what by the his­toric progress the bill made this year” and his belief that the state has moved clos­er to abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Utah death-penal­ty repeal effort was led by Republican leg­is­la­tors, and the state’s Republican Governor Gary Herbert had said he would con­sid­er sign­ing the bill. In 2016, a bill spon­sored by Republican Sen. Steve Urquhart passed the state sen­ate and a house com­mit­tee, but was not vot­ed on by the full House before the leg­isla­tive ses­sion end­ed. This year, Republican Rep. Gage Froerer spon­sored HB 379, and won the sup­port of Republican House Speaker Greg Hughes. But on March 2, after the bill had passed the House Judiciary Committee, Froerer pulled it from con­sid­er­a­tion because he believed the bill would lose a close vote in the House. ​“I was hope­ful that Utah would be one of the first red states to take this, because the trend obvi­ous­ly is to do away with the death penal­ty,” Froerer said. ​“I’m con­vinced whether it’s next year or five or 10 years from now the death penal­ty will go away.” The fail­ure of the abo­li­tion bills came on the heels of death-penal­ty pro­po­nents’ aban­don­ment of efforts to restore cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in New Mexico and Iowa. After pass­ing the New Mexico House last leg­isla­tive ses­sion, a bill to bring back the death penal­ty was tabled in com­mit­tee on February 2. It was the fifth failed attempt by Republican Gov. Susana Martinez to rein­state the prac­tice, which was abol­ished under Gov. Bill Richardson in 2009. On February 13, the spon­sor of Iowa’s Senate Study Bill 3134—Republican Sen. Brad Zaun, the chair­man of the Senate Judiciary Committee — announced that he did not have enough votes to move for­ward with the bill in 2018 and would be ​“putting it to rest.” Proponents of Iowa’s house bill had pre­vi­ous­ly with­drawn it from con­sid­er­a­tion when a key Republican sup­port­er changed his mind after research­ing the bill. Rep. Steven Holt said ​“con­cep­tu­al­ly and moral­ly” he believes the death penal­ty is some­times appro­pri­ate, but “[s]tatistics show, with­out a doubt, that those of less­er means are more like­ly to receive the death penal­ty than are those with greater assets and abil­i­ty to hire the best attor­ney.” Holt said, ​“I sup­port the death penal­ty in the­o­ry,” but ​“prac­ti­cal­ly, I arrived at a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion than I expect­ed. … I have great issues with its prac­ti­cal and fair application.”

(Walter Rubel, Death penal­ty bill stopped in House com­mit­tee, Las Cruces Sun-News, February 3, 2018; Rod Boshard, Iowa death penal­ty debate comes to an end, Quad City Times, February 13, 2018; William Petroski, Death penal­ty bill advances in Iowa Senate after emo­tion­al debate, Des Moines Register, February 12, 2018; O. Kay Henderson, Death penal­ty bill’s progress in doubt after today’s announce­ment, Radio Iowa, February 1, 2018; Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price, Death Penalty Repeal Bid in Conservative Utah Fizzles Again, Associated Press, March 2, 2018; Michelle L. Price, Republicans Push to Ban Death Penalty in Conservative Utah, Associated Press, February 20, 2018; Danny Palomba, Death Penalty Bill dies in House Committee, KXLY-TV, March 6, 2018.) See Recent Legislative Activity.