A National Legislative Update

From our Friends at Capital Defense Weekly:
Theme of the week? Politics & the death penalty
Some weeks there are there are themes or trends that seem to develop or are highlighted. This week, amidst what appears to be a relatively slow week for new appellate case law, it seems that seems to be politics and the death penalty.
For example a “state lawmaker filed a bill Thursday that would protect doctors who take part in executions, joining a debate that has effectively shut down capital punishment in North Carolina. The bill filed by state Sen. Phil Berger came a day after a longtime death penalty opponent in the chamber asked for a moratorium while the lethal injection process is studied.” Press accounts here. ODPI is keeping up with developments, & People of Faith Against the Death Penalty is helping advocatea for many of those change in the Tar Heel state.
In the midwest, as DPIC notes, “Missouri Rep. Bill Deeken, a Republican death penalty proponent, has introduced legislation that would halt executions in the state until 2011 and would create a capital punishment commission to examine the fairness and accuracy of Missouri’s death penalty. Deeken stated that his motivation for the bill came after realizing that the state’s death penalty has not been implemented fairly in all cases and it does not adequately prevent wrongful convictions. He noted, ‘ am not against the death penalty. But what I am for is to make sure that any person that is sentenced to death is the right person. If I was on a jury, and I found out that I had put someone to death that was not guilty, it would bother me for the rest of my life’.”
Further west, “[f]or the first time in nearly two decades, members of the Nebraska’s unicameral legislature will have an opportunity to debate a bill that would repeal the state’s death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life without parole and an order of restitution. Members of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee unanimously advanced the bill, noting that their colleagues in the full senate should have a chance to debate the measure. The bill’s sponsor, Senator Ernie Chambers, introduced similar measure in 1979 that won approval by the legislature, but was vetoed by then-Governor Charles Thorne.” DPIC, from which the quote is taken, has more.
In Colorado, the AP notes a key committee vote of 7-4 to abolish the death penalty in Colorado and use the money from death penalty cases to try to solve cold case files.
In Montana, press accounts note, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard from proponents of a billl, that would make life in prison without parole the “the most severe punishment available to prosecutors and juries in the state.”