Pennsylvania House Committee Passes Death Penalty Repeal Bill

A bill to repeal the death penal­ty in Pennsylvania has passed a com­mit­tee in the commonwealth’s House of Representatives. The Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee vot­ed 15 – 10 in favor of HB 999 on October 31, 2023. That vote is the first step toward abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in Pennsylvania, which has had a for­mal mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions since 2015 and has not exe­cut­ed any­one since 1999.

Bill spon­sor Rep. Chris Rabb (D – Philadelphia) pro­vid­ed sev­er­al rea­sons for repeal, includ­ing the 11 death row exon­er­a­tions from Pennsylvania, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, and the high cost of cap­i­tal cas­es. On the issue of deter­rence, he said, ​“If you are tough on crime, there is zero evi­dence that the death penal­ty has any deter­rent effect, or that any­one intent on com­mit­ting the most unspeak­able atroc­i­ties will review Pennsylvania’s crime code to deter­mine what could hap­pen to them if they get caught.”

Rep. Paul Schemel (R – Franklin), the one Republican mem­ber of the com­mit­tee who joined all 14 Democrats in vot­ing for the bill, said, ​“Here in Pennsylvania and in the United States where we can safe­ly keep some­one impris­oned where they are not going to do harm to any­one else, we should fall on the side of life.” The committee’s Minority Chairman, Rep. Rob Kauffman (R – Franklin), did not vote for the bill, but indi­cat­ed he has an open mind on the issue. ​“While I’m not at the point of sup­port­ing this leg­is­la­tion today, I do think this is some­thing worth study, worth fur­ther con­ver­sa­tion, look­ing at what this means to the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” he said.

The com­mit­tee also approved HB 751, which would raise the evi­den­tiary require­ment for the impo­si­tion of a death sen­tence. Jurors must cur­rent­ly find that aggra­vat­ing fac­tors out­weigh mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors by a pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence. The bill would change that to require a find­ing beyond a rea­son­able doubt. Rep. Tim Bonner (R – Mercer) said he spon­sored the bill because the cur­rent instruc­tions are confusing.