"Study says Missouri death penalty too broad," is the AP post by David A. Lieb, via the Kansas City Star. It's also available via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Missouri has too many reasons for which prosecutors can pursue the death penalty against murder suspects and needs to do a better job of preserving forensic evidence such as DNA samples, according to a report being released Thursday.
The report is the result of a two-year study sponsored by the American Bar Association that was conducted by a panel of law professors, private-sector attorneys and federal judges who had been nominated to the bench by Republican and Democratic presidents. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report before it was to be publicly released later Thursday at a Capitol news conference.
The study notes that Missouri has 17 "aggravating circumstances" that give prosecutors wide discretion by which they can argue to jurors that someone should be sentenced to death. One justification, for example, is that the murder was "wantonly vile." The result is that the circumstances "are so broadly drafted as to qualify virtually any intentional homicide as a death penalty case," the report says.
The report recommends narrowing the law so that only the most serious murder cases are eligible for the death penalty.
Also from Missouri, KMOX-AM reports, "Death Penalty Under Review."
The death penalty in Missouri is again under scrutiny, and this time the concern is the cost. A senate committee heard testimony from a number of people including the Deputy Director of the Missouri Public Defender System, Dan Gralike.
“I am personally familiar with one death prosecution. It had to be retried because because of various errors five times since 1992. I estimate the cost to the state to be well over three or four million dollars simply for the cost of the public defender.” said Gralike.
A bill under consideration would have the state auditor study the cost of Missouri’s death penalty. Republican Representative Stanley Cox testified some crimes deserve the death penalty and the option should not be eliminated.
The ABA Missouri Assessment is available at the ABA Moratorium Implementation Project website.
Late last year, a Kentucky Assessment was released. Related posts, including other state assessments, are in the ABA index.
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