Delaware - Bill repealing death penalty, sparing current death row inmates, clears Senate panel

Associated Press

DOVER, Del. — A bill that would repeal Delaware’s death penalty and spare the lives of 17 killers already on death row cleared a Senate committee on Wednesday and is heading to the full Senate for a vote.

Members of the Senate Executive Committee voted 4-2 to release the bill after hearing from both supporters and opponents.

Supporters of the bill argue that the death penalty is morally wrong, racially discriminatory, ineffective as a deterrent to violent crime and far more costly than putting killers in prison for life.

They also point to cases in other states where condemned killers have later been exonerated.

“If it happened to me ... it can happen to anybody,” said Kirk Bloodsworth, a Maryland man who was the first person in the United States freed because of DNA evidence after being convicted in a death penalty case.

Bloodsworth was convicted of killing a 9-year-old girl outside Baltimore in 1984 based on eyewitness testimony. He spent two years on death row before a retrial that resulted in a life sentence. He was later exonerated based on DNA evidence. Another man pleaded guilty to the murder in 2004 and was sentenced to life in prison.

But Lewes Police Chief Jeffrey Horvath, chairman of the Delaware Police Chiefs’ Council, said there’s no evidence that an innocent person has ever been sentenced to death in Delaware.

“The Delaware system, in the opinion of the Delaware Police Chiefs’ Council, is not broken,” Horvath said. “We have many safeguards in place, and one of finest court systems in the country.”

“We believe that the residents of Delaware have faith in our criminal justice system in deciding the fate of a murderer,” he added.

Brendan O’Neill, head of the state public defender’s office, countered that the death penalty is morally wrong, and that killers facing the death penalty often are mentally ill, poor, and victims of substance abuse.

“We do and can punish them, but we should not kill them,” O’Neill said.

Attorney General Beau Biden, whose office has sought the death penalty in several cases, issued a statement last week reiterating that he believes capital punishment is appropriate for criminals who commit “the most heinous crimes.”

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