Several state leg­is­la­tures have recent­ly tak­en action on bills relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. In Arkansas, a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a voice vote. Bill spon­sor Sen. David Burnett, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor and judge who both sought and imposed the death penal­ty, said, ​“It’s no longer a deter­rent. It’s a pun­ish­ment that’s actu­al­ly bro­ken. It does­n’t work. And it costs a huge amount of mon­ey to try and pros­e­cute those cas­es.” Arkansas last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in 2005. A sim­i­lar bill in Montana was approved by a House com­mit­tee with bipar­ti­san sup­port, but failed on a tied vote (50 – 50) in the full House. Before the vote, repeal sup­port­er Rep. Mitch Tropila said, ​“This is an his­toric moment in the Montana House of Representatives. It has nev­er vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty on sec­ond read­ing. This is a momen­tous moment, and we are on the cusp of his­to­ry.” Montana’s last exe­cu­tion took place in 2006. Virginia leg­is­la­tors reject­ed a bill to shield infor­ma­tion relat­ed to lethal injec­tion as state secrets. The House of Delegates vot­ed 56 – 42 against the bill, which would have exempt­ed ​“all infor­ma­tion relat­ing to the exe­cu­tion process,” includ­ing the source of exe­cu­tion drugs and the build­ings and equip­ment used for exe­cu­tions, from open records laws. Del. Scott A. Surovell com­ment­ed, ​“Anytime some­body in the gov­ern­ment wants to restrict infor­ma­tion about what the gov­ern­ment is going to do, I think we need to ask some real­ly dif­fi­cult ques­tions and get some straight answers before we grant them that right.”

(S. Willems, ​“Bill to abol­ish death penal­ty goes for­ward,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 26, 2015; M. Dennison, ​“House dead­locks on bill to abol­ish death penal­ty in Montana,” Billings Gazette, February 23, 2015; J. Portnoy, ​“Va. House kills lethal injec­tion secre­cy bill despite sup­port of McAuliffe,” Washington Post, February 24, 2015). See Recent Legislation and State-by-State Database.

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