Entries tagged with “State Sen. Daniel McCay”
Research
Feb 17, 2022
Effort to Repeal and Replace Utah’s Death Penalty Fails on 6 – 5 Vote in State House Committee
A high-profile Republican-led effort to abolish the death penalty in Utah has failed in committee by a single vote. State representatives in the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee voted 6 – 5 on February 14, 2022 not to advance a proposal that would repeal Utah’s death penalty and replace it with a new non-capital sentencing alternative of 45 years to life. The bill, HB 147, was introduced in the deeply conservative state by Republican lawmakers Representative V. Lowry Snow and…
Research
Jan 19, 2022
Republican Legislators Introduce Bill to Repeal and Replace Utah’s Death Penalty
Two conservative Republican legislators, both former supporters of capital punishment, have introduced legislation that would end death-penalty prosecutions in Utah. On January 18, 2022, the first day of the three-month 2022 legislative session in the deeply conservative state, State Representative V. Lowry Snow (pictured, left) and Senator Daniel McCay (pictured, right) introduced HB 147, which would prohibit the death penalty for aggravated murders committed after May 4, 2022 and for all…
Research
New Voices
,Dec 30, 2021
Utah County Attorney’s Rejection of Death Penalty Reflects Broader Conservative Movement Away from Capital Punishment
When Utah County Attorney David Leavitt (pictured) announced on September 8, 2021 that his office would no longer pursue the death penalty, his decision to do so was emblematic of a broader shift in conservative thinking on the death penalty. The Republican district attorney from “a deeply conservative” county that gave Donald Trump a 41-percentage-point margin of victory in the 2020 presidential election joined what the Wall Street Journal describes as “a growing movement of conservatives…
Issues
Victims' Families
,Sep 08, 2021
Legislators Plan New Attempt to Repeal Utah Capital Punishment Law, as Prominent County Attorney Announces He Will No Longer Seek the Death Penalty
Efforts to end the death penalty in Utah edged forward on September 8, 2021 as two Republican legislators revealed plans to introduce legislation to “repeal and replace” the state’s capital punishment law and the prosecuting attorney in the state’s second most populous county declared that he would no longer seek the death penalty in future cases. After what they describe as having “spiritually contemplated the issue,” former death-penalty supporters State Representative Lowry Snow (R – St.