2016 Legislation

Alabama

1. Bill with 8 sen­ate co-spon­sors would estab­lish an Innocence Inquiry Commission and put a hold on exe­cu­tions for about 1 year.

1. PASSED Senate Judiciary Com. unan­i­mous­ly. Only cap­i­tal cas­es would be sub­ject to review. On April 7, PASSED full Senate 20 – 6

California*

INITIATIVES:

1. A pro­posed ini­tia­tive would cur­tail the appeals process and bypass pub­lic review of the exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016.

2. Initiative on repeal­ing the death penal­ty, includ­ing for those cur­rent­ly on death row. The Justice That Works Act of 2016.

1. Appeared on the bal­lot in November 2016 as Proposition 66 and approved by vot­ers. Implementation on hold pend­ing chal­lenge in California Supreme Court.

2. Appeared on the bal­lot in November 2016 as Proposition 62 and defeat­ed by voters.

Colorado

1. SB 64 would allow death sen­tences with non-unan­i­mous juries if the vote is at least 9 – 3. Bill amend­ed in com­mit­tee to allow death sen­tence with a vote of at least 11 – 1.

2. A House bill would allow a 2^d sen­tenc­ing jury if the first one is not unanimous.

Republican pro­pos­als in a large­ly Democrat legislature.

1. After a hear­ing in Sen. Judic. Com. on Feb. 10, bill DEFEATED 3 – 2.

2. DEFEATED 6 – 3 in House Com.

Delaware*

Bill to repeal the death penal­ty. SB 40. Repeal would not be retroac­tive to those cur­rent­ly on death row.

Bill vot­ed out of House Judic. Com. for first time in recent years. DEFEATED 23 – 16 in House on Jan. 28. Bill had PASSED Senate and gov­er­nor said he would sign it. The bill was slat­ed for recon­sid­er­a­tion by the House the week of March 7. Reconsideration was deferred pend­ing deci­sion by Delaware Supreme Court on con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the cur­rent death penal­ty statute. On August 2, the Delaware Supreme Court struck down the death penal­ty statute, and on August 15, the Attorney General announced he will not appeal the decision.

Florida

1. The U.S. Sup. Ct. found FL’s death sen­tenc­ing scheme uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Proposed leg­isla­tive reme­dies include bills to ensure the jury makes a unan­i­mous deter­mi­na­tion of at least one aggra­vat­ing fac­tor and to require a unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion for a death sen­tence (SB 330 & SB 7068). HB157, iden­ti­cal to SB330, was intro­duced in the House. 

2. HB7101 would require a unan­i­mous jury deter­mi­na­tion that at least 1 aggra­vat­ing fac­tor exists. Judge may then impose death sen­tence if at least 9 of the 12 jurors rec­om­mend death penal­ty.

All ver­sions of the bills remove from the tri­al court the author­i­ty to over­ride jury rec­om­men­da­tions of a life sentence.

At the time the Florida leg­is­la­ture con­sid­ered these bills, the FL Sup. Ct. had grant­ed a stay of a sched­uled (Feb. 11) exe­cu­tion to con­sid­er the retroac­tive effect of the US Sup. Ct.‘s deci­sion in Hurst v. Florida, which had declared the state’s pri­or death sen­tenc­ing procedures unconstitutional.

1. SB 7068 PASSED Senate Crim. Justice Com. 5 – 0 on Feb. 8 and was referred to the full Senate. (Read the Florida Senate Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement here.) The bill was ulti­mate­ly tabled on March 2, and a com­pan­ion bill (HB7101) con­di­tion­ing impo­si­tion of a death sen­tence upon a jury vote of at least 10 – 2 in favor of death was passed. (See below.)

2. Original ver­sion of the bill, con­di­tion­ing impo­si­tion of a death sen­tence upon a jury vote of at least 9 – 3 in favor of death, PASSED House Judiciary Committee 17 – 1 on Feb. 10 and was referred to the full House.

Compromise PASSED House 93 – 20 requir­ing 10 – 2 rec­om­men­da­tion of a death sen­tence. Bill requires notice to defense of alleged aggra­va­tors, unan­i­mous find­ing by jury of at least one aggra­va­tor, and at least a 10 – 2 vote for death as pre­con­di­tions for the judge to impose a death sen­tence. (Read the House of Representatives Final Bill Analysis here.) Following House pas­sage, the bill moved to the Senate for its con­sid­er­a­tion. Senate com­mit­tee PASSED 12 – 6 a ver­sion of the House bill, requir­ing 10 – 2 jury rec­om­men­da­tion for death. 

On Mar. 2, the Senate, by votes of 22 – 18 and 23 – 17, DEFEATED two attempts to restore a unan­i­mous-jury require­ment for a death rec­om­men­da­tion. which was in the orig­i­nal senate bill.

Compromise Bill PASSED Senate 35 – 5 on Mar. 3. Governor SIGNED bill into law on Mar. 7, effec­tive with signing.

In October 2016, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in Perry v. State that the new death penal­ty statute vio­lat­ed the Sixth Amendment and the Florida state con­sti­tu­tion and that the statute could not be applied to pend­ing mur­der pros­e­cu­tions. The Florida Attorney General’s office has sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the rul­ing with respect to future prosecutions.

Kansas*

Bill to repeal the death penal­ty intro­duced by bi-par­ti­san spon­sors, HB 2515. Repeal would not be retroactive.

Assigned to House Judiciary Committee, where it is unlike­ly to receive a hear­ing this year.

Kentucky*

Bill to repeal state’s death penal­ty has been pro­posed by Sen. Gerald Neal. HB 203

Hearing sched­uled in House Judic. Com. on Mar. 9. Bill was DEFEATED 9 – 8.

Louisiana

1. Bill to cre­ate a Capital Cost Commission to deter­mine in advance of a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion whether suf­fi­cient funds are avail­able to pur­sue a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion and, at the appeal and post-con­vic­tion stages, whether suf­fi­cient funds are avail­able to pro­ceed with a cap­i­tal appeal or post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ing. Absent cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of suf­fi­cient fund­ing, a tri­al would pro­ceed non-cap­i­tal­ly, or on appeal, the sen­tence would be reduced to life impris­on­ment at hard labor without parole.

2. HB 818 would change the com­po­si­tion of the Louisiana Public Defender Board and require 75% of all funds in the restruc­ture the Louisiana Public Defender Fund to be dis­bursed to dis­trict pub­lic defend­er offices, effec­tive­ly lim­it­ing the amount of funds avail­able for capital cases.

1. Referred to committee.

2. Referred to the House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice.

Mississippi

1. Bill to impose secre­cy regard­ing source of lethal injec­tion drugs, names of employ­ees, and fam­i­ly wit­ness­es: SB 2237. Amended in House of Representatives to include option of exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad if lethal injec­tion deemed too cost­ly or unavailable. 

2. Bill to expand death penal­ty to include those who kill cer­tain pub­lic ser­vants, such as first respon­ders.

1. PASSED, as amend­ed, by the Senate 32 – 18 on March 1, 2016. PASSED House on March 25, 79 – 40, with amend­ment. Both hous­es of the leg­is­la­ture approved a Conference Report on April 19, with the House vot­ing 103 – 13 and the Senate vot­ing 39 – 12. The Governor SIGNED the bill into law, May 3.

Missouri*

1. Rep. Kathy Swan (R) intro­duced a bill to repeal the state’s death penal­ty. Bill has 4 oth­er Republican spon­sors and one Democrat. Similar Senate Bill (SB 816).

2. Bill to add ter­ror­ism as an aggra­vat­ing fac­tor for eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penalty.

3. Rule to require sep­a­rate list­ing of execution expenses.

1. Introduced Jan. 7. Second read­ing Jan. 11. PASSED Sen. General Laws Com. in late January. Put on infor­mal cal­en­dar – spelling likely defeat. 

3. House Budget Com. APPROVED rule that would reveal pay­ments for exe­cu­tions, such as the cost of drugs.

Nebraska

REFERENDUM on repeal that was passed in 2015 was sched­uled for Nov. 2016, with repeal sus­pend­ed until referendum.

Sufficient sig­na­tures were gath­ered to place ref­er­en­dum on bal­lot in Nov., and court chal­lenges to ref­er­en­dum were dis­missed. Voters approved ref­er­en­dum and over­turned leg­isla­tive repeal of death penalty.

New Hampshire*

1. Bill SB 463 would sus­pend the death penal­ty until there would be no doubt of defendant’s guilt. 

2. HB 1552 would expand the death penal­ty to crimes of ter­ror­ism and mur­der to block a per­son­’s exer­cise of civil rights.

1. Senate com­mit­tee hear­ing con­duct­ed on Jan. 28. Vote in Senate on Mar. 3. Senate vot­ed 12 – 12 on a bill to repeal the death penal­ty, there­by DEFEATING the mea­sure. A bill to sus­pend the death penal­ty was tabled.

2. House Crim Jus & Public Safety Com rec­om­mend­ed 10 – 4 to kill the bill. House vote later.

New Jersey

5 bills have been intro­duced in the Assembly and 3 in the Senate to restore the death penal­ty for a vari­ety of homi­cides. They are:

A1220 and its iden­ti­cal com­pan­ion bill S1701, which was intro­duced as A393 in the 2015 – 2015 leg­isla­tive ses­sion and failed to pass.
A1325 and its iden­ti­cal com­pan­ion bill S1447, which were intro­duced as A1532 and S1741 in the 2015 – 2015 leg­isla­tive ses­sion and failed to pass.
A3279, also iden­ti­cal to S1447, which was intro­duced as A2429 in the 2015 – 2015 leg­isla­tive ses­sion and failed to pass.
A4437 and its iden­ti­cal com­pan­ion bill S2818.
ACR166.

None of the bills has advanced in committee.

New Mexico

Special Session H.B 7 would rein­state the death penal­ty for cer­tain mur­ders or felony murders including:

mur­der of ​“a peace offi­cer who was act­ing in the law­ful dis­charge of an official duty”;

mur­der of a vic­tim ​“under the age of eighteen years”;

inten­tion­al mur­der occur­ring ​“in the com­mis­sion of or attempt to com­mit kid­nap­ping, crim­i­nal sex­u­al con­tact of a minor or crim­i­nal sexual penetration”;

inten­tion­al mur­der com­mit­ted ​“by the defen­dant while attempt­ing to escape from a penal insti­tu­tion of New Mexico”;

inten­tion­al mur­der of ​“a per­son who was at the time incar­cer­at­ed in or law­ful­ly on the premis­es of a penal insti­tu­tion in New Mexico,” com­mit­ted by a defen­dant ​“while incar­cer­at­ed in a penal insti­tu­tion in New Mexico”; 

mur­der for hire;

“mur­der of a wit­ness to a crime or any per­son like­ly to become a wit­ness to a crime, for the pur­pose of pre­vent­ing report of the crime or tes­ti­mo­ny in any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ing or for retal­i­a­tion for the vic­tim hav­ing tes­ti­fied in any criminal proceeding.” 

The bill was intro­duced in a Special Legislative Session in October 2016 and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee, with amend­ments. It was report­ed out of com­mit­tee on October 5, 2016, referred to the full House under con­tro­ver­sial cir­cum­stances, and con­sid­ered at 3:00 a.m. on October 6, 2016 (the final day of the spe­cial ses­sion) with­out advance notice to the Democratic mem­bers of the State House.

The bill PASSED the full House on a straight par­ty-line vote of 36 – 30.

The State Senate adjourned with­out con­sid­er­ing the bill dur­ing the Special Session. The bill may still be con­sid­ered by the Senate when it recon­venes in January 2017.

Ohio*

1. SB162 would exempt defen­dants with severe men­tal ill­ness from the death penalty. 

2. HB57 would expand the scope of Ohio’s death penal­ty statute to add as an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance that the mur­der ​“was a vio­la­tion of divi­sion (A) of sec­tion 2903.01 of the Revised Code.” Unstated in the bill, 2903.01 applies when­ev­er a ​“per­son shall pur­pose­ly, and with pri­or cal­cu­la­tion and design, cause the death of anoth­er or the unlaw­ful ter­mi­na­tion of another’s pregnancy.”

3. HB 289 and SB 154 would abol­ish the death penalty

1. Was referred to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee on May 27, 2015. The com­mit­tee con­duct­ed hear­ings on the bill on Jan. 27 and Feb 10, 2016. 

2. HB57 was intro­duced on Feb. 11, 2015 and was referred to House Judiciary Committee. It PASSED the judi­cia­ry com­mit­tee, with amend­ment, on June 17, 2015 on a par­ty-line vote of 7 – 4 and PASSED the full House on Apr. 12, 2016 by a vote of 83 – 11.

The bill was referred to the State Criminal Justice Committee on Apr. 20, which held a hear­ing on the bill in May.

3. HB 289 was referred to the House Judiciary Committee, and SB 154 was referred to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

Oklahoma

1. REFERENDUM: Joint Sen. Resolution 31 (passed in 2015) calls for a state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment stat­ing that the death penal­ty is in effect, that the method of exe­cu­tion can be changed, and that the death penal­ty is not cru­el and unusual.

2. SB 884 would allow lethal injec­tion drugs to be held at the prison.

1. Amendment appeared on the bal­lot in Nov. 2016 and was approved by voters.

2. PASSED Senate on Feb. 23 by vote of 46 – 0. PASSED House Appropriations Committee by vote of 20 – 1 on Mar. 30. PASSED full House by vote of 76 – 12 on Apr. 12. SIGNED INTO LAW by the Governor on Apr. 19.

South Carolina

S. 553 would pro­vide secre­cy sur­round­ing lethal injec­tion drugs. An alter­na­tive to this bill would allow use of nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions if lethal injec­tion was not possible.

Secrecy bill on hold.

South Dakota*

SB 94, intro­duced with 24 bi-par­ti­san co-spon­sors, would repeal death penalty.

Referred to the Senate State Affairs Committee. DEFEATED 7 – 2. 

Tennessee

Senate Bill 2342, spon­sored by Sen. Steve Dickerson, requires preser­va­tion of bio­log­i­cal evi­dence (such as DNA) in cap­i­tal cas­es until the con­vict­ed indi­vid­ual is exe­cut­ed or until the sen­tence is oth­er­wise com­plet­ed. The com­pan­ion House Bill is HB2377.

Senate bill sched­uled to be vot­ed on by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Mar. 15. House ver­sion sched­uled for a Criminal Justice Sub-com­mit­tee vote on Mar. 15. PASSED both com­mit­tees unan­i­mous­ly on Mar. 22. PASSED Senate 31 – 0 on Apr. 4. PASSED House 94 – 0 on Apr. 13. SIGNED INTO LAW.

Texas*

1. HB 64 would abol­ish the death penalty.

2. HB 147 would pro­hib­it seek­ing death penal­ty under the Texas law of par­ties if the defen­dant is found guilty based sole­ly on the acts of another.

1. Introduced on 11/​14/​16. Not yet referred to committee.

2. Introduced on 11/​14/​16. Not yet referred to committee.

Utah*

1. HB 136 would expand the death penal­ty to include offens­es in which death occurs in the course of human traf­fick­ing and defen­dant act­ed with reck­less indif­fer­ence to the loss of life

2. SB. 189: Repeal of the death penal­ty, pro­posed by Sen. Steve Urquhart. Repeal would not affect those cur­rent­ly on death row.

1. Referred to the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee. PASSED pan­el 6 – 3 on Feb. 2 and referred to full House. PASSED House 44 – 28. Not act­ed on by the Senate dur­ing the leg­isla­tive ses­sion, there­by DEFEATING it.

2. PASSED Senate Judiciary Com. 5 – 2. PASSED in Senate 15 – 12. PASSED House Judic. Com. 6 – 5 on Mar. 8. Full House vote by Mar. 10. Bill was pulled from con­sid­er­a­tion and not vot­ed on dur­ing last day of the ses­sion, Mar. 10, there­by DEFEATING it.

Virginia

1. Bill to pro­hib­it secre­cy of drug providers in lethal injections

2. HB 815 would require use of the elec­tric chair if lethal injec­tions can­not be carried out.

2a. Following leg­isla­tive approval of the mea­sure, the Governor sub­sti­tut­ed an amend­ment remov­ing the elec­tric chair pro­vi­sions and replac­ing them with pro­vi­sions per­mit­ting the Department of Corrections to spe­cial­ly con­tract with a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy for pro­duc­tion of exe­cu­tion drugs and con­ceal­ing the iden­ti­ty of the pro­duc­er and/​or sup­pli­er of the execution drugs.

1. DEFEATED 4 – 1 in subcommittee

2. PASSED 14 – 7 in House Courts of Justice Committee. PASSED by full House of Delegates 62 – 33 on Feb. 10. PASSED Senate Courts of Justice Com 9 – 5. PASSED by full Senate on Mar. 7, 22 – 7 with amend­ment requir­ing Director of Department of Corrections to have made rea­son­able effe­orts to obtain exe­cu­tion drugs before declar­ing that they are unavail­able. Because of dif­fer­ences with House ver­si­ion, bill must be con­fer­enced and passed by both hous­es efore going to gov­er­nor. The rec­on­ciled bill PASSED the leg­is­la­ture on Mar. 11 (House vote: 65 – 32; Senate vote: 22 – 17) and was sent to the governor. 

2a. On Apr. 8, the Governor declined to sign the bill as adopt­ed by the leg­is­la­ture and instead SUBSTITUTED AN AMENDMENT pro­vid­ing for exe­cu­tion secre­cy. The House of Delegates and State Senate both CONCURRED with the Governor’s amend­ment on Apr, 20 and the BILL BECAME LAW.

Wyoming*

Wyoming con­sid­er­ing bill to repeal death penalty

DEFEATED in WY House.