[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IND., ARK., MONT., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

February 21



OHIO:

Anti-Death Penalty Group Pleased But Still Concerned About Upcoming Executions



Advocates against capital punishment say they’re pleased with comments from 
Gov. Mike DeWine, who says executions won’t proceed until the prisons 
department comes up with a new lethal injection process.

DeWine says until the lethal injection mixture can stand up to federal court 
scrutiny, the nearly two dozen executions scheduled between this May and 2022 
won’t go forward.

Kevin Werner with Ohioans to Stop Executions said that’s the right decision, 
but there needs to be an examination of the overall system and those who are on 
death row.

“They are people who are poor, who killed white victims, and who have some 
underlying substance abuse or abuse as children or have a mental illness – I 
mean, that’s who we’re talking about here," Werner said.

Werner said lawmakers haven’t acted on recommendations they’ve had to improve 
the system.

DeWine, a former prosecutor and attorney general, told reporters the death 
penalty is the law, but with DNA and other advances there’s more known today 
than when he voted to pass the law in 1981.

(source: WVXU news)

**********************

7 men from Butler County are on Ohio’s Death Row. Here’s what they did.



Of the 137 Ohio prison inmates sentenced to death for convictions of aggravated 
murder, 7 are connected to Butler County.

On Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he is halting executions until the state 
devises a new lethal injection protocol that overcomes any court challenges.

He did not issue a formal stay of all executions but said “Ohio is not going to 
execute someone under my watch when a federal judge has found it to be cruel 
and unusual punishment.”

There are no death penalty cases pending in Butler County, according to court 
records.

The last Butler County person to be executed by lethal injection was Michael 
Benge, 49, of Hamilton. In 2010, Benge was executed at the Southern Ohio 
Correctional Facility in Lucasville for the beating death of his estranged 
girlfriend Judy Gabbard in June 1993.

Benge’s execution was Ohio’s 8th lethal injection in 2010 — the most in a year 
since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. The previous high was 7 in 
2004. The most executions occurred in 1949, when 15 men died by electric chair.

Here is a look at the 7 inmates from Butler County on death row:

Von Clark Davis

In September 2009, it took a 3-judge panel less than 60 minutes to affirm that 
twice-convicted killer Von Clark Davis, who was first sentenced to die 35 years 
earlier, should return to Ohio’s death row.

Davis, 72, who twice had his death penalty overturned in appeals, has admitted 
to killing his former girlfriend, Suzette Butler, in December 1983 in Hamilton.

When he shot Butler multiple times in the head, he was on parole for the 1970 
stabbing death of his wife, Ernestine, 20, at her Hamilton home.

Donald Ketterer

Donald Ketterer, 68, of Butler County, pleaded guilty in a 2004 trial for the 
murder and robbery of 85-year-old Lawrence Sanders. A 3-judge panel sentenced 
Ketterer to death with an additional 22 years for other charges.

He stabbed to death Lawrence Sanders, 83, and struck him in the head with a 
cast-iron skillet.

Jose Loza

Jose Loza, 45, of Middletown, was sentenced in 1991 for shooting and killing 4 
members of his girlfriend’s Middletown family. The victims were shot in the 
head at close range while they slept in their home.

Calvin McKelton

In 2010, convicted killer Calvin McKelton was sentenced to death for the 
execution-style shooting of a witness who saw him strangle his girlfriend and 
Fairfield attorney Margaret “Missy” Allen.

Butler County Common Pleas Judge Michael Sage also sentenced the 
then-33-year-old Cincinnati man to 15 years to life in prison for Allen’s 
murder and an additional 14 years for a string of other felony charges related 
to dumping her body and trying to cover up evidence in her home.

McKelton showed no emotion when the judge imposed the death penalty that a jury 
recommend, but maintained his innocence during a brief statement before the 
sentence.

“I would like to say, I am innocent of these charges, I was wrongfully 
indicted, wrongfully convicted… but I believe the same system that failed me 
will be the same system that sets me free,” McKelton said, adding he will 
appeal.

McKelton was convicted of killing Allen in July 2008 and for the February 2009 
shooting death of Germaine Evans Sr. in a Cincinnati park. Evans’ murder 
carried the possibility of a death penalty because he was killed so that he 
could not implicate McKelton in Allen’s death, which is an aggravating factor, 
according to Ohio law.

Gregory Osie

5 years ago, the Ohio Supreme Court stayed the execution of a former West 
Chester Twp. man who was convicted in 2009 for murdering his girlfriend’s boss 
to cover up the woman’s alleged theft.

Gregory Osie, 53, was scheduled to die on June 15, 2016, but in 2014 the 
state’s highest court granted this motion to stay that date until all state 
appeals are exhausted.

Osie was convicted by a 3-judge panel in April 2010 of aggravated murder, 
aggravated robbery and tampering with evidence. He was sentenced to death for 
the killing of David Williams at his Liberty Twp. home.

Kenneth Smith

Kenneth Smith and his brother, Randy, were convicted of robbing and killing 
Ruth and Lewis Ray in their Hamilton home in May of 1995.

The 6th District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has heard the appeals Kenneth 
Smith has made to stave-off his death sentence.

Both Smiths were convicted of murder with death penalty specifications, but 
only 1 brother was sentenced to death row and that was Kenneth.

Randy Smith received a life sentence with parole eligibility after 30 years.

Clifford Williams

Clifford Williams, then 18, was convicted of shooting and killing a taxi driver 
in Hamilton on Aug. 3, 1990. He hailed the taxi, shot the driver in the head 
and stole his money.

He was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, and breaking and 
entering.

Williams was admitted to the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in February 
1991. He’s been there ever since, awaiting an execution date.

(source: Hamilton Journal-News)








INDIANA:

Man accused in 4 killings loses fight to avoid death penalty



A northeastern Indiana judge has rejected efforts by a man awaiting trial in 4 
slayings to avoid a possible death penalty in the case.

An Allen County judge ruled Monday against 23-year-old Marcus Dansby's bids to 
have the death penalty thrown out as an option and to have Indiana's capital 
punishment statute declared unconstitutional.

Dansby's attorneys argued that the Fort Wayne man was too young to get a 
possible death penalty if he's convicted because he was 20 years old at the 
time of the killings.

The Journal Gazette reports that Dansby is charged in the fatal September 2016 
shootings and stabbings of 3 people in Fort Wayne, including his ex-girlfriend, 
who was 8 months pregnant.

Dansby's trial is scheduled for April, but his lawyers are seeking a 
postponement.

(source: Associated Press)








ARKANSAS:

Arkansas Bill Would Put Limits On Last Meals For Condemned



An Arkansas lawmaker is proposing that the last meal for death row inmates be 
limited to the same food choices that are available to other prisoners on the 
day of the execution.

Republican Rep. Rebecca Petty on Wednesday filed legislation to place limits on 
death row inmate’s final meals. Under Petty’s proposal, the inmate’s final meal 
on the day of the execution should be limited to existing food available at the 
facility when the inmate is executed.

Arkansas hasn’t executed an inmate since April 2017, when it put 4 inmates to 
death over an 8-day period. The state doesn’t have any more executions 
scheduled, and its supply of 3 lethal injection drugs has expired.

(source: Associated Press)








MONTANA:

After 2 years, Mueller's Russia probe may be near its end. CNN says DOJ 
preparing for report as early as next week topical----Committee rejects bills 
to limit, overturn death penalty in Montana



A legislative committee has rejected bills that sought to limit or overturn the 
death penalty in Montana.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 11-8 Wednesday against abolishing capital 
punishment.

Members also rejected, 15-4, a bill to require indisputable DNA or video proof 
of a person's guilt in a capital crime before the defendant could be sentenced 
to death.

Republican Rep. Alan Doane said he opposed the DNA bill because it required 
evidence to be presented at trial and would rule out the death penalty if a 
defendant confessed and pleaded guilty.

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Krotkov said that while the DNA bill was imperfect she 
supported it because the death penalty isn't implemented fairly, is costly and 
does not deter homicide.

A bill to abolish the death penalty in Wyoming recently passed the House but 
failed in the Senate.

(source: Associated Press)




MONTANA:

After 2 years, Mueller's Russia probe may be near its end. CNN says DOJ 
preparing for report as early as next week topical----Committee rejects bills 
to limit, overturn death penalty in Montana



A legislative committee has rejected bills that sought to limit or overturn the 
death penalty in Montana.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 11-8 Wednesday against abolishing capital 
punishment.

Members also rejected, 15-4, a bill to require indisputable DNA or video proof 
of a person's guilt in a capital crime before the defendant could be sentenced 
to death.

Republican Rep. Alan Doane said he opposed the DNA bill because it required 
evidence to be presented at trial and would rule out the death penalty if a 
defendant confessed and pleaded guilty.

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Krotkov said that while the DNA bill was imperfect she 
supported it because the death penalty isn't implemented fairly, is costly and 
does not deter homicide.

A bill to abolish the death penalty in Wyoming recently passed the House but 
failed in the Senate.

(source: Associated Press)

*******************

Abolish Montana's death penalty



The only 2 people on Montana's death row have been there for decades. Ronald A. 
Smith was convicted of killing two men in 1982 near Glacier National Park. 
William Jay Gollehon was sentenced to die for murdering five other inmates 
during a 1991 riot at Montana State Prison.

The most recent execution carried out by the state of Montana was in 2006, when 
David Dawson was put to death for kidnapping and murdering the Rodstein family 
in Billings in 1986. Dawson spent the last 2 years of his life arguing for his 
own execution. After 18 years of incarceration, Dawson preferred death and 
demanded an end to appeals.

Montana's experience with death sentences makes a strong case against capital 
punishment. Montana has virtually abolished it because no one has been executed 
in a dozen years. The state presently has no legal method for execution because 
in December 2017, a Helena District judge ruled that the state's mandated 
execution drug failed to meet the state's requirement for a fast-acting lethal 
injection.

Yet the rarely used and unenforceable law remains in state code. There are good 
reasons for abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with life in prison 
without possibility of parole:

To avoid fatal errors. Inmates on death row in other states have been 
exonerated. In Montana, more than a dozen convicts have been proven innocent 
with DNA evidence long after they went to prison. A person wrongly imprisoned 
can be set free; there's no possibility of justice for a wrongly executed 
person.

The enormous cost of prosecuting a death penalty case, starting at the county 
trial level where, over the years, some county attorneys have chosen to pursue 
life sentences rather than death because of the expense to their community. 
Appeals continue for decades with taxpayers funding both prosecution and 
defense costs.

Taxpayers bear the costs of lifetime incarceration, but they have already paid 
to keep Montana's 2 death row inmates locked up for more than 30 years each 
pending execution. The Montana Office of Public Defender presently has 2 death 
penalty cases, 1 of which had costs of $530,000 in fiscal 2018, and $351,933 in 
the first 6 months of fiscal 2019, according to the fiscal note for HB350 
prepared by the state budget office. Those legal expenses dwarf the $40,000 a 
year it costs to keep an inmate in Montana State Prison.

Family and friends of victims are reminded of the crimes again and again as 
appeals wind through the court systems. Some may wish to see the convict 
executed, but others are opposed.

Capital punishment doesn't deter crime. If executions deterred criminals, Texas 
should have the lowest murder rate in the nation because it carries out by far 
the most executions, but it doesn't. States that have abolished the death 
penalty, on average, have lower murder rates than states with capital 
punishment laws, according to FBI statistics.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee tabled the latest proposal to 
abolish capital punishment on vote of 11-8. Rep. Mike Hopkins, R-Missoula, 
sponsored House Bill 350 to strike the death penalty and replace it with life 
in prison without possibility of parole. This change would assure that justice 
is done in sentencing the worst criminals and that victims' families would no 
longer wait for 30 years or more to see the sentence carried out.

2 days before the committee rejected HB350, the panel held a hearing where 
Montanans who favored abolition outnumbered those who wanted to keep capital 
punishment on the books. David Andersen, of the Montana Association of 
Christians, said "the death penalty is inconsistent in our view with Christian 
values and biblical witness."

"In using it, we continue to model the taking of life to settle scores," Susan 
DeBree, the mother of a murder victim and proponent of HB350, told the House 
committee. "We kill people to teach people they shouldn't kill."

With HB350 tabled and the bill transmittal deadline just over 2 weeks away, 
chances for reviving it are slim, but the reasons to abolish capital punishment 
still matter. Replacing it with life in prison would be more just, more certain 
and more fiscally responsible. And for some convicts, like David Dawson, living 
behind bars is the greater punishment.

A legislative committee has rejected bills that sought to limit or overturn the 
death penalty in Montana.

(source: Opinion; Billings Gazette)

*********************

Republicans on House panel deep-six bill to abolish death penalty



Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to 
kill the bill to abolish the death penalty in Montana.

Without discussion, the panel voted 11-8 to kill House Bill 350, which was 
heard before the committee on Monday. All Republicans on the panel voted to 
table the measure; all 8 Democrats voted to keep it alive.

Rep. Mike Hopkins, R-Missoula, the sponsor of the bill, told MTN News he has no 
plans to try to revive the measure.

“It was important to have the discussion (on the issue),” he said.

In testimony before the committee Monday, Hopkins said it’s time to abolish the 
death penalty because Montana is still spending money on current cases even 
though the state has been barred by a court ruling since 2015 from executing 
anyone.

Only 2 convicts are on death row in Montana. One of them, Ronald Smith, was 
first sentenced in 1983.

Death-penalty opponents have tried for several legislative sessions to pass a 
bill to abolish the penalty in Montana. A bill last made it to the House floor 
in 2015, but died on a 50-50 vote.

(source: KRTV news)








NEVADA:

Bill to End Nevada’s Death Penalty Proposed



A bill to end the rarely used death penalty in Nevada, is circulating around 
the legislature. State senator James Ohrehshall and assemblyman Ozzie Fumo have 
introduced AB149. Similar measures died in the last legislative session. 
Ohrenschall says the death penalty is not a deterrent, but is a burden on 
taxpayers. It rarely proceeds smoothly to an execution, even when the killer 
requests it. Nevada’s last execution was in 2006. Fumo is a Las Vegas defense 
attorney who estimates the average cost of mandatory appeals for death row 
inmates at $500,000, and said the state spends a billion “warehousing” people 
in jails and prisons before, during and after death penalty trials.

(source: KKOH news)

************************

Nevada lawmakers call to end death penalty; cite costs, stalls



2 Democratic state lawmakers say costly appeals and the inability to carry out 
a lethal injection mean that Nevada should give up the death penalty.

State Sen. James Ohrenschall and Assemblyman Ozzie Fumo have introduced a bill 
(AB149) to add Nevada to the list of 20 states and the District of Columbia 
that ban capital punishment.

The 2 lawmakers separately backed a similar measure that died in the 2017 
Legislature.

Ohrenschall calls the death penalty a burden on taxpayers, and says killers 
don't consider it a deterrent.

Nevada hasn't executed anyone since 2006, and the 2 lawmakers cite court 
challenges that twice stopped scheduled executions of Scott Raymond Dozier.

Fumo says money spent on mandatory appeals for death row inmates could go 
instead to schools and education.

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

Man Faces Death Penalty in Kidnapping, Killing of 11-Year-Old Inglewood Boy in 
1990



A man faces the death penalty for the kidnapping and killing of an 11-year-old 
Inglewood boy nearly 30 years ago, Los Angeles County District Attorney’s 
Office announced Wednesday.

Edward Donell Thomas, 50, was arrested on Feb. 14 in connection with the 
disappearance of William Tillett.

Thomas faces a murder charge, along with a special allegation of kidnapping and 
lying in wait. The charges make him eligible for the death penalty. Thomas was 
also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.

William was walking home from Kew Elementary School in Inglewood on May 24, 
1990 when he was kidnapped. His body was found hours later in a Hawthorne 
carport, officials said.

It is unclear what led to Thomas’ arrest nearly 30 years later.

He faces death or life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted 
as charged.

Inglewood police continue to investigate the crime, and anyone with information 
can call homicide detectives at 310-412-5246. (source: KTLA news)








WASHINGTON:

Senators vote to end state death penalty



The Senate passed a bill Friday to remove the death penalty from Washington 
state statute and replacing it with life in prison without parole.

Senate Bill 5339 passed with 28 in favor, 19 opposed, with senators Phil 
Fortunado, R-Auburn and Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, excused.

Republican senators Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake and Brad Hawkins R-Wenatchee, 
and sponsor Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla voted in support of the typically 
democratic bill. Democratic senators Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, Dean Takko, 
D-Longview, and Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequium voted against the bill.

The Senate passed a similar bill last year prior to the state Supreme Court 
declaring the death penalty as applied was racist and arbitrary. The bill was 
never brought to a vote in the House.

House Bill 1488 is the companion to the bill passed in the Senate and has yet 
to hear public testimony.

Sen. Steve O’Ban, R-Tacoma, believes it is possible to create a death penalty 
that the Supreme Court would approve, saying the Senate has a “lack of will” to 
find a solution.

Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, spoke in support of the bill citing the 
testimony that took place in the Law and Justice Committee which he chairs.

Former state Secretary of the Department of Corrections Dick Morgan testified 
in support of the bill in committee on Feb. 5, speaking on behalf of several 
other previous DOC secretaries. Morgan said hundreds of prisoners have 
committed similar crimes and were sentenced to life without parole yet from a 
management viewpoint they pose no greater risk than those on death row.

“There is punishment that exceeds normal imprisonment and that is placement in 
the highest security level … ,” said Morgan. “That basically results in no 
physical human contact with another person while that punishment is in place. 
It’s profound, it’s desocialization of an inmate if they’re violent enough, if 
the misconduct warrants it.”

During the floor debate Sen. Keith Wagoner, R-Sedro-Woolley read a statement 
from the killer of Jayme Biendl, a correctional officer murdered in 2011 by an 
inmate already serving life in prison. Wagoner argued that if the death penalty 
is taken off the table there is no further punishment for inmates who commit 
crimes while serving life in prison.

Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, ranking member on the Law and Justice 
Committee, acknowledged pursuing the death penalty is difficult and expensive.

“I’m not a zealot for the death penalty,” said Padden. “I’m somewhat of a 
reluctant supporter.”

Since 1904, 78 people have been executed in Washington state, according to the 
Department of Corrections. The last execution took place in 2010.

(source: waheagle.com)








USA:

At Last, a Bipartisan Argument Against the Death Penalty----Western state 
lawmakers from both parties are making a pragmatic case for abolishing capital 
punishment.



When the Wyoming Senate rejected a bill last week that would abolish the 
state’s death penalty, most of the national attention focused on comments by a 
single lawmaker. “The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty 
for you and for me,” Lynn Hutchings, a Republican state senator, reportedly 
said. “Governments were instituted to execute justice. If it wasn’t for Jesus 
dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope.” Her unusual rationale 
for opposing the bill quickly went viral.

What’s more remarkable is that Wyoming legislators came so close to scrapping 
capital punishment at all. The state House of Representatives passed the bill 
in a 36-21 vote earlier this month. Though similar measures had been introduced 
in recent years, none of them advanced past their initial vote on the house 
floor. Almost all of those votes came from Republican lawmakers, who hold a 
supermajority in both chambers of the state legislature, and with the blessing 
of some party leaders.

Opponents of the death penalty often make a moral case for abolition. In 
Wyoming, fiscal considerations also held sway. The state hasn’t executed anyone 
since 1992, and the last death-row prisoner had his sentence overturned in 
2014. Nonetheless, the state still spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on 
the system each year. “It’s worthless,” Jared Olsen, the bill’s sponsor and a 
Republican, told Wyoming Public Radio. “All we do is spend [millions] of 
taxpayer dollars on it, and I think that’s a burden that the taxpayers have 
shouldered for too long.”

Wyoming isn’t the only state in the American West that’s moving toward 
abolition. Lawmakers in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and 
Washington—including many Republicans—are also considering bills that would 
abolish or effectively end capital punishment in their respective states, and 
at least some appear likely to succeed. The same ethical issues raised 
elsewhere in the country—wrongful convictions, racial disparities, the morality 
of the state taking a human life—still carry weight in the West. But there also 
seems to be a simple pragmatism to it: Capital punishment is expensive, 
increasingly complicated, and already moribund, so why not finish it off?

To say these states currently have the death penalty is somewhat misleading. 
The death penalty is illegal in 20 states, either because the legislature 
abolished it or the courts forbid it, and most of the other 30 states no longer 
practice it. Fewer than a dozen states regularly carry out executions, and even 
in those states, juries are sentencing fewer people to death. Justice Anthony 
Kennedy’s retirement last year all but guaranteed that the Supreme Court won’t 
abolish capital punishment for at least a generation, and yet the system seems 
less stable than ever.

There are myriad causes for the death penalty’s decline since the late 1990s, 
when executions peaked. Violent crime dropped precipitously over the past 25 
years, reducing the number of defendants charged with offenses that might 
qualify for it. The Supreme Court shrank that pool even further in 2002 by 
forbidding the execution of people with intellectual disabilities and those who 
committed crimes as juveniles in 2005. In 2008, the court explicitly limited 
capital punishment only to crimes “in which the life of the victim was taken.”

External factors also played a role. Prosecutors sought fewer death sentences 
than they did in the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 1990s, and juries 
handed them down less frequently. Defendants who are sentenced to death go 
through a complex appellate process in both the state and federal courts, which 
can last years or even decades. Executions have become harder to perform as 
well. Under pressure by activists, U.S. and European drug manufacturers stopped 
selling lethal-injection drugs to the states over the last decade. While some 
states have found willing providers of those drugs, others have begun exploring 
alternative execution methods or simply given up. (In the latest example, the 
South Carolina Senate approved a bill last month to bring back the electric 
chair and allow firing squads, too.)

In some Western states, lawmakers would be finishing what the other branches of 
government started. Washington’s state Senate voted to repeal its capital 
punishment statute last week after the state Supreme Court struck down the 
death penalty in 2018. The judges had pointed to evidence that it was being 
imposed in a racially discriminatory manner. Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a 
Democrat, had already imposed a moratorium on executions in 2014, citing 
concerns about “too many flaws in the system.” One of those flaws was the 
geographic disparity in how local officials wielded it. “The use of the death 
penalty in this state is unequally applied, sometimes dependent on the budget 
of the county where the crime occurred,” he said.

Lawmakers in some states have been vocal about their frustrations with the 
current state of affairs. Almost 80 prisoners await execution on Nevada’s death 
row, though none have been put to death since 2006. “We waste so much money 
pretending to be harsh on crime and putting people into custody and telling 
them we’re going to kill them, and it never ever happens,” Ozzie Fumo, a 
Democratic state assemblyman who introduced the bill, told the Las Vegas 
Review-Journal. “This bill will just codify what the will of the people is, and 
it’s to stop this absurdity.” With Democrats in control of both legislative 
chambers and the governor’s mansion for the first time since the 1990s, the 
bill has a reasonable chance of becoming law.

Nevada, like many states, has struggled to carry out executions in recent 
years. To circumvent the pharmaceutical industry’s ban on supplying drugs for 
lethal injections, state officials last year proposed the use of fentanyl to 
kill prisoners instead. The powerful opioid is responsible for thousands of 
accidental deaths by overdose every year in America; Nevada hoped to 
intentionally use it toward the same end. The first inmate to face the 
procedure was going to be Scott Dozier, a convicted murderer who intentionally 
waived his appeals in 2017 so the state could put him to death. Legal 
challenges from the ACLU and a pharmaceutical company effectively halted the 
state’s plan last year. In January, Dozier committed suicide in his cell.

Some state lawmakers have argued that abolition merely would codify the status 
quo. The Montana state public defender’s office told state lawmakers at a 
hearing last week that the state spent almost $1 million every legislative 
biennium on legal costs for the two capital cases it was currently taking part 
in. The state hasn’t executed a prisoner since 2006. “It is another form of 
life in prison that just so happens to cost the state of Montana a lot more 
money than regular life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Mike 
Hopkins, a Republican state representative who introduced the abolition bill, 
told his colleagues at the hearing.

Pragmatic opposition to the death penalty is also bringing pragmatic solutions 
to end it. Oregon voters entrenched capital punishment in the state 
constitution in 1984, thereby preventing the legislature from abolishing it 
entirely. To circumvent that, state lawmakers are mulling a plan to effectively 
scrap the death penalty by sharply restricting the crimes for which it can be 
sought. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported in October that one proposal would 
only authorize the death penalty for homicide as a result of domestic or 
international terrorism. While this wouldn’t count as outright abolition, it 
would effectively end the practice until state voters get an opportunity to 
finish the job.

This isn’t strictly a Western trend. While abolition seems far from imminent in 
most Midwestern and Southern states, which continue to carry out executions at 
a steady pace, Republican lawmakers in Kansas and Kentucky have begun making 
the fiscal case against capital punishment. There are also Western states that 
have bucked the trend: California voters backed a ballot initiative in 2016 
that would accelerate executions rather than end them; the state has more than 
700 prisoners on death row, but hasn’t performed an execution since 2006. But 
after decades of moral opposition to the death penalty, and growing outrage 
over its racially disproportionate application, a more succinct rationale seems 
to be resonating beyond the political left: It’s just not worth the hassle.

(source: The New Republic)