Proposed legislation will end Nevada’s death penalty
Exciting news! You may have heard that there is a bill in the Nevada Legislature that proposes to repeal our death penalty law and replace it with life without parole. The bill, AB 237, is co-sponsored by Assemblymember James Ohrenschall and Senator Tick Segerblom. It is set for hearing in the Assembly Judiciary Committee on March 29, 2017, starting at 8 a.m.
The proposed legislation addresses what we already know – that the death penalty is an extremely costly and deeply flawed public policy, which should be ended. We know that the death penalty is an extremely expensive system to maintain, with more than 80 inmates on Nevada’s Death Row and over 50 additional cases pending in Clark County at the trial level, yet no executions in more than a decade.
We know that the death penalty is ineffective – it does not deter other murderers and it cannot even be carried out due to the lack of available drugs, which stems from pharmaceutical companies’ refusal to allow their products to be used in executions. You can read more about these issues in this fact sheet here.
We also know that the death penalty in Nevada is applied unevenly and unfairly. Geography and economics determine who lives and who dies more than how heinous the crimes are. There is also troubling evidence of racial bias in the application of the death penalty, with white victims’ killers being far more likely to be sentenced to death than killers of victims of color. We know that the death penalty runs the risk of executing innocent people – two inmates have been released from Nevada’s Death Row on the basis of innocence. Finally, we know that the death penalty presents a false promise to victims’ family members who may never see the killer executed due to lengthy delays in the legal system. Click here for a fact sheet about these issues.
The Coalition supports AB 237 and will be present at the March 29 hearing to testify in favor of passing the bill. We encourage you to express your opinion about the measure now by going to this link and submitting a brief message in the comment section.
For your consideration, here is a sample message from which you can cut and paste your comment. (It will all fit in the comment section if you want to use the whole message.)
Contact us at nvcadp@gmail.com if you have questions or ideas.
