The Montana Senate has vot­ed to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty law. Supporters of the mea­sure not­ed that the death penal­ty does not deter crime, is expen­sive, increas­es the suf­fer­ing of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies who must endure a lengthy manda­to­ry appeals process, and is not applied fair­ly or accu­rate­ly. ​“It’s not right. You can’t do it fair­ly, you can’t do it with equi­ty, you can’t do it with jus­tice,” said Democratic Senator Steve Gallus. Among the Republican Senators who sup­port­ed abo­li­tion was Sen. Roy Brown, R‑Billings, who said his anti-abor­tion views led him to change his mind and vote for abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. ​“Even a guilty life is worth sav­ing,” he said. He empha­sized that the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son made the death penal­ty unten­able.

Sen. Jim Shockey, R‑Victor, agreed, dis­tin­guish­ing killing in wars and self-defense from the death penal­ty: ​“It is not nec­es­sary for the gov­ern­ment to kill peo­ple for revenge.”

The mea­sure passed by a vote of 27 – 21 and now faces a final Senate vote before it goes to the Montana House for con­sid­er­a­tion. There are cur­rent­ly two pris­on­ers on death row in Montana. The state has exe­cut­ed three peo­ple since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in the 1970s.
(Associated Press, February 24, 2007). See Recent Legislative Activity and New Voices.

UPDATE: The bill passed the Senate on 3rd read­ing on Saturday by a vote of 27 – 22 and will now be referred to the Montana House Judiciary Committee where it will be slat­ed for a hear­ing in the upcom­ing weeks (March 2, 2007).

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