A bill that would repeal the death penal­ty in South Dakota was sched­uled for a hear­ing in the House State Affairs Committee on February 10. The bill, HB 1245, would man­date life impris­on­ment with­out parole for peo­ple con­vict­ed of Class A felonies. South Dakota has only exe­cut­ed one per­son in the last 50 years, and cur­rent­ly has 3 peo­ple on death row. The bill is spon­sored by Rep. Gerald Lange (D‑Madison), and strong­ly sup­port­ed by the Association of Christian Churches of South Dakota. Gene Miller, Executive Director of the Association, said, ​“We don’t have to go that far back in our his­to­ry to find, for exam­ple, seg­re­ga­tion laws. That made that legal, but it was nev­er moral. Our posi­tion on this would prob­a­bly be sim­i­lar to that: You can make it legal, but that does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly make it right.” (South Dakota is one of sev­er­al states con­sid­er­ing leg­isla­tive action regard­ing the death penal­ty this year. See DPIC’s Recent Legislative Activity page.)

(J. Oster, ​“Death Penalty Repeal Returns,” Public News Service — SD, February 10, 2010). See also New Voices: Religious Views.

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