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Anti-Death Penalty Bills Begin Moving Through State Legislatures

By Jeralyn, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Tue Feb 04, 2003 at 12:45:04 PM EST
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From the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty:
Proposals to ban the execution of people with mental retardation and juvenile offenders and measures that would abolish the death penalty or place a moratorium on executions are under consideration in a number of states, according to an analysis released today by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty .

Even though it is still early in most state legislative sessions, legislators already have filed more than 200 death penalty-related measures. Bills that would reform, curtail or abolish the use of the death penalty outnumber unfavorable bills by a three-to-one ratio, according to the NCADP analysis.....

On Tuesday, NCADP also unveiled a new tool that will allow activists to lobby their state legislators and state legislative reporters to track legislation in their state capitals. By visiting www.ncadp.org, activists can access the NCADP Legislative Action Center and find out what death penalty-related bills have been filed in their state, the status of those bills and how to contact state legislators.

Many of the bills NCADP is tracking fall into these categories:
****Legislators in at least six states are considering moratorium bills: Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia. And legislators in at least 11 states have filed bills to abolish the death penalty altogether: Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

****Legislators in at least 11 states are considering bills that would bring their states into compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 Atkins ruling, which outlawed the execution of people with mental retardation: Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

****Legislators in at least nine states are considering bills to ban the execution of juvenile offenders: Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. (More states are expected to see juvenile bans introduced shortly.)

****Finally, legislators in two states - Pennsylvania and New York - are considering innovative legislation that would require states to consider whether murder victims' family members oppose the death penalty before sentencing. And a bill in New York would create a registry for death penalty opponents so that if a person is on record as opposing the death penalty, the state would
not seek it in case of his or her murder.

"In 2003 we will see a number of states pass bans on executing juvenile offenders and people with mental retardation," Hawkins predicted. "We will also see moratorium and abolition legislation begin to move forward in the legislative process. 2003 will go down as a successful year for anti-death penalty organizers as we begin to envision the end of the death penalty in the United States."
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