Death penalty repeal passed by DE Senate 11-9
According to the NJ, the bill survived attempts by Pete Schwartzkopf to undo the repeal bill and add a weighted scale of death significance, with police deaths rated as the most significant.
Via the Cape Gazette:
Dover — A bill repealing the death penalty in Delaware was voted through the state Senate Thursday, April 2.
By an 11-9 vote, Delaware’s senators passed Senate Bill 40, bipartisan legislation that replaces Delaware’s death penalty with a sentence of life without parole.
The bill was introduced March 18 by Sen. Karen Peterson, D-Stanton, mirrors a 2013 bill she sponsored that passed the Senate 11-10. That bill did not get out of committee in the House.
The legislation would end capital punishment in Delaware, except for the 15 inmates already convicted and sentenced to death row. If passed, Delaware would become the 19th state without the death penalty.
The bill now moves to the House.
So in Pete’s world, I probably have a death significance of about a 4 or 5. A homeless guy would have a death significance score of about a 1 and a cop would have a death significance score of around 30, depending on his years of service.
From a 2012 article:
In 2011, the sixteen abolitionist states (CT joined this list in 2012) plus the District of Columbia accounted for more than 26% of the US population but only 18% of the police officers murdered.
By contrast, three states (TX, FL, and VA) which apply the death penalty frequently – carrying out more than half of all US executions since 1976 – accounted for about 16.5% of the US population but for nearly 20% of the police officers murdered in 2011.
http://blog.timesunion.com/kaczynski/police-murders-and-the-death-penalty-2/652/
We can’t allow facts to cloud our emotions.
I’m stealin’ that @4:46 Jason.
@Nancy,
I think Jason left something out of his observation: That’s a 30 for cops on a scale of 1 to 10.
How long has it been since anyone offed a cop? Not to give support to Pete Blackhead’s position, but its practical effect may be almost nil.
Manifold: The last Delaware police officer fell in the line of duty in 2011, when Joseph Szcerba was killed; before that, in 2009, when Chad Spicer was murdered. The last officer in America to be killed was last Tuesday – Wisconsin Trooper Trevor Casper.
Jason, where did you see the NJ report on Pete’s efforts to amend/scuttle it in the Senate? I’m not finding that.
I extrapolated based on Petes prior comments on the realative significance of police lives and the NJ’s lazy report yesterday afternoon that the clean bill survived attemps by members to add crimes that would remain punishable by the death penalty.
The severity of the crime is completely immaterial because the fact is a death sentence isn’t a deterrent.
The next cartoon Tornoe does should be the 9 DE State Senators who voted “NO” caricatured as drool-dripping illiterate Neanderthals. The only arguments that are supporting government sanctioned murder are religious and vengeance. Both utterly disgusting…. If one can’t get past myth, legend and base vile emotion and get to a place of rational thought we’re all fucking doomed.
Like national health care, the USA is dreadfully behind the times. It’s the 21st century. Capital punishment is from a bygone era (at least for advanced nations). It’s another in a long line of national embarrassments and it needs to be abolished as soon as possible. Next thing you know we’ll start codifying discrimination again…
Anyone know the only country in Europe to still have the death penalty? Belarus. Fucking Belarus. That’s our European ally in this. Even Putin’s Russia abides by the moratorium Yelsin began in 1996!
Well my issue is what about people already serving life? For example, Officer Sczerba died due to being stabbed. What is the deterrent for his killer from stabbing a correctional officer while serving life, another life sentence?
The amendments to this bill were ridiculous. Bonini intro’d an amendment that not only would have retained the current death penalty, but would have added yet another ‘aggravating’ circumstance to the long list in the code. You know, ‘terrorism’.
Was disappointed that Sen. Marshall voted no on the bill. Was disappointed, but not surprised, that Bethany Hall Long and Nicole (No Longer) Poore also voted no.
I doubt it is anymore of a deterrent in that situation, but has probably been studied.
What is the deterrent for someone on death row to not kill a correctional officer? If your point is someone serving life is a threat because they have nothing to lose then someone on death row would have even less to lose, and, by your logic, jamesf, make them more of a threat. So, if you actually believe what you wrote then you would be making a stronger argument against the use of the death penalty.
The corrections system has policies and schemes in place to manage the inmates. I’m sure you know this. Your argument is irrelevant. It could be made for every person serving life for a violent crime. What deters them for doing to a corrections officer(s) what they did to get incarcerated? It’s circular.
I suppose we could ask Australia or Austria or Belgium or Bhutan or Brazil or Bulgaria or Canada or Cyprus or Denmark or Ecuador or France or Germany or Gibraltar or Hong Kong or Hungary or Ireland or Israel or Italy or Liechtenstein or Macau or Mexico or Mongolia or Netherlands or New Zealand or Norway or Philippines or Poland or Portugal or Romania or San Marino or Serbia or South Africa or Spain or Suriname or Sweden or Switzerland or Turkey or Ukraine or United Kingdom or Uzbekistan or Venezuela how they manage it…
So Pete’s death is less than a cops. I mean if that doesn’t tell you where that fuktard’s head is at I don’t know what does. Law Enforcement is ahead of all else. What does that say about the guy? What does that mean with how he legislates and views every day citizens.
What is it with these guys that show so much deference to force? I just don’t get it.
What happens if a cop kills another cop? Cancel’s it out?
What happens if a lawmaker is shot by a cop?
How did they come up with the weighting system? I can almost see him swigging beers and throwing darts, the occasional joke about the dart missing the board and him saying, “that’ll be the weight we give the blacks”
There are two choices here: (1) accept that the death penalty legislation is dead for the year because Pete CAN keep it from coming to a vote; or (2) accept the blackmail and take what we can get, knowing that once there is a “cop-killer” exemption it will never come out of the law. (I say this because all efforts to pressure/convince Pete lead inexorably back to item 1.)
I’m conflicted. As much as I absolutely want a “clean” death penalty abolition bill, I also want a death penalty abolition bill this year. I guess a big consideration for me in deciding which strategy to follow would be information I don’t have: how many people are currently sitting on Delaware’s death row, and where are they in their appeals?
“The next cartoon Tornoe does should be the 9 DE State Senators who voted “NO” caricatured as drool-dripping illiterate Neanderthals. ”
He can’t do that. A cartoonist is supposed to exaggerate reality, not reproduce it.
@pandora: You’re wrong about your contention that a death row inmate is as likely to kill a guard as a lifer is. Death row inmates have no contact with other inmates, and guards can defend themselves better than fellow inmates.
The reason it’s not a particularly good exception is that some people serving life WANT to die instead, and they might kill just to get the death penalty.
Even if the death penalty were a deterrent, I would oppose it because I cannot countenance a single life taken in the name of justice unless the justice system can guarantee that we will never exact that penalty on someone who is innocent of the crime. It cannot do that. Maybe it never can. But until then, that one life is my sole reason. The death penalty must not just be held to a higher standard, it must be held to the highest standard of no doubt whatsoever. If there was video of absolute provenance of someone killing someone else, with no extenuating circumstances, I would have no objection to exacting the death penalty, recognizing that it is retribution and not a deterrent.
It has to be a clean bill. An exception for cops becomes an exception for first-responders, an exception for veterans, an exception for kids, exception after exception. Soon, if anybody with a vanity plate got killed, that would be an exception itself. Have you seen the number of permissible categories for vanity plates? It wouldn’t end.
All that you would need to add another exception would be a horrific case that lends itself to political demagoguery.
Frankly wouldn’t be worth the effort.
There are 15 people on death row in Delaware. It is so much of a deterrent that Wilmington was named Murder Town, USA, last year.
Schwartzkopf told TNJ he hopes people respect the committee process and that there will not be an attempt to petition the bill out. Kind of how legislators respect the voting process by bottling bills up in committee or tucking them away in a desk drawer.
By no means do I support execution as a punishment, but here is a possible practical reason for retaining the death penalty at least on paper;
A public defender’s client is accused of murder. Prosecutor threatens the death penalty, a plea is copped for life w/o parole and the client disappears into the bowels of a maximum security prison never to emerge again.
Without the threat of the death penalty, can a public defender ethically allow a plea to the worst possible outcome for his client, or would he be forced to battle it out in court? Or would it cause a ripple effect stepping down pleas to 20 years w/o parole holding out the possibility, however remote, that a cold blooded killer might one day walk.
I’m sure there are attorneys on here. I’m ducking so fire away……