WYOMING – Wyoming is closer than it has ever been to repealing the death penalty. After debating points of morality and money, the House voted 36-21 to pass HB145 at third reading, sending legislation to the Senate that would remove capital punishment as an option for first-degree murder convictions.
In part, and at its core, the bill simply strikes “death” from state statute concerning its penalties for murder in the first degree. “A person convicted of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death, life imprisonment without parole or life imprisonment according to law…”
Surprising? Not according to many who have been watching nationwide trends. And as some politicos point out: It’s not Dems doing it.
So far in 2019, in addition to Wyoming, there are Republican-sponsored death penalty repeal bills already introduced in three other states—Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Washington—with more anticipated.
In 2018, both houses of the Republican-controlled New Hampshire state legislature overwhelmingly passed a death penalty repeal bill that was vetoed. Studies show a significant increase in Republican state legislators opposing the death penalty from 2012-2017.
“With only nine Democrats in the Wyoming House of Representatives, this vote was driven by Republicans who value life, who want to be fiscally responsible, and who believe in limiting the scope of government,” said Hannah Cox, national manager for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. “This active leadership of conservative state legislators wanting to end the death penalty reflects the trend we are seeing across the country. Wyoming is the latest signal that the death penalty is on its way out and that conservatives are leading the way.”
GOP representatives in the House cited various reasons why they voted to end capital punishment in the Equality State.
Rep. Sue Wilson (R-Cheyenne) said that she was once a death penalty supporter. But then she realized that, as in so many other cases, the government can—and often does—make mistakes. She said the thought of executing an innocent person horrified her.
Rep. Danny Eyre (R-Lyman) said he’d always believed in capital punishment—he’d even argued on behalf of it in high school debate club. But then he saw the fallout in his own community when Wyoming executed Mark Hopkinson in 1992, the last person to be put to death in this state. Eyre grew up with Hopkinson and knew his family. When the state put him down, Eyre said, even Hopkinson’s horrible crime didn’t seem to justify the emotional and psychological harm in his small town that followed the execution.
The 30-member Senate includes just three Democrats so, again, it would be up to Republicans to do the heavy lifting if the bill were to be passed on to the Governor for signing.
Currently, capital punishment is a legal penalty in 30 states including Wyoming. Wyoming has executed 18 men since statehood—13 by hanging hanged, four by lethal gas, and one by lethal injection.
No one is on ‘death row’ right now in Wyoming since Dale Eaton received a stay of execution in 2014, later upheld on appeal in 2015.
