Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
A Republican legislator made a public plea Monday for passage of his bill to abolish Indiana’s death penalty, arguing that the state’s execution process was flawed and didn’t serve as a deterrent for “heinous crimes.”
A small group of legislators, clergy and a national leader of a conservative group committed to the abolition of capital punishment joined Rep. Robert Morris, R-Fort Wayne, Monday at the state Capitol to push for passage of Morris’ bill to repeal Indiana’s death penalty.
“I will always stand for the sanctity of life,” Morris said, as he and other speakers questioned the death penalty’s alignment with conservative values of limited government and protection of life at all stages.
Morris authored House Bill 1030, which specifies that if a person was sentenced to death and is awaiting execution of the death sentence, the person’s death sentence is commuted to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
It also provides that when a defendant is charged with a murder for which the state seeks a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, the defendant may file a petition alleging that the defendant is an individual with an intellectual disability.
The bill has been sent to the House Committee on Courts and Criminal Code, which is chaired by Rep. Wendy McNamara, R-Evansville.
Morris said Monday he had spoken with House leadership and McNamara about the bill.
He said Senators Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne and Eric Bassler, R-Washington, had also expressed support for HB 1030.
Morris added that he suspected there could be several amendments filed in both legislative houses geared toward legislation ending the death penalty.
“There’s a number of ways we could go in eliminating capital punishment in Indiana,” Morris said.
As chairman of the House Committee on Commerce, Small Business and Economic Development, Morris said he filed an amendment last week related to pentobarbital, the lethal injection drug used in executions.
Morris said the amendment calls for pentobarbital and any drugs used in the future to be tested by the Indiana State Police lab 12-24 hours before an execution to ensure its potency.
He said he is also working on an amendment that would exempt state employees from taking part in executions. Morris alluded to the lingering trauma DOC employees face when they are required to take part in executions.
The Fort Wayne legislator said he has also spoken with Gov. Mike Braun about his bill and the death penalty, but declined to offer additional details of his conversation with the governor.
Braun has made general public statements about the death penalty, but he has not specifically said whether he supports the repeal of capital punishment in the state.
In one statement, Braun said, “I would consider input from federal authorities and other states in addition to health experts, but when used, the death penalty should be swift and painless.”
Braun also said at a GOP gubernatorial debate in April : “All life is precious, and the death sentence is a very serious penalty reserved for those guilty of the most heinous of crimes. I trust Hoosier jurors and judges to understand the gravity of the sentence and hand it down when appropriate.”
Morris said he started to think about the state’s death penalty and the process that goes into carrying out a sentence after Joseph Corcoran’s execution in December.
He said he thought about the state’s Department of Correction employees that were charged with carrying out the execution, the same people that spend countless hours with death row prisoners and make sure they’re properly housed and taken care of.
Morris questioned how an execution could serve as a deterrent for other capital crimes if it’s conducted in a small room with few witnesses.
Indianapolis Archdiocese Archbishop Charles Thompson and Gary Diocese Bishop also spoke Monday of the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the death penalty.
Thompson reiterated that the church has consistently called for opposition to the death penalty, with Pope Francis recently reemphasizing that opposition.
“The antidote to violence is love, not more violence,” Thompson said, quoting from a statement on capital punishment issued by the U.S. Catholic Bishops.
Demetrius Minor is National Manager for Conservatives Concerned, a group that describes itself as a network of political and social conservatives who question the alignment of capital punishment with conservative principles and values.
Minor said the movement by Republican conservative lawmakers to take up the mantle in abolishing capital punishment has spread to several U.S. states, including Indiana.
“I would say 10-15 years ago, this would not have been possible,” Minor said.
Minor said conservatives hold an inherent distrust of government and the costs to taxpayers associated with some government actions.
“It costs more for the death penalty to take place than a sentence of life without parole,” Minor said.
He called capital punishment “an abysmal failure” and added that society doesn’t want to run the risk of executing an innocent person.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.