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Thread: Utah Capital Punishment News

  1. #61
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    Bill would expand the list of death-penalty crimes, stirring concern it could jeopardize Utah's capital-punishment law

    A bill that would expand Utah's list of crimes eligible for the death penalty cleared an early hurdle at the Capitol on Monday as lawmakers moved it to the Senate floor despite fears that SB30 could actually imperil the state's capital punishment law if challenged in court.

    SB30 would enhance the penalty for killing private security officers and various first responders.

    But it raised concern for 1 member of the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee who said that while he supports the death penalty in Utah, a court challenge could torpedo the law for being too broad.

    "I am concerned with loading that boat too full and sinking the boat," Sen. Todd Weiler, the Woods Cross Republican who leads the committee, said before 5 other members voted to pass the bill.

    Weiler, an attorney, said he'd heard concerns from civil-rights groups that Utah may have too many crimes that qualify for the death penalty.

    Marina Lowe, legislative and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, said the U.S. Supreme Court halted executions in the past for laws giving prosecutors too much discretion over whether someone faces death penalty charges. The state has over 60 aggravating factors that could lead to a death sentence.

    "Organizations like my own don't think it's appropriate we're allowing [the death penalty] for more and more crimes each year," Lowe said.

    Sen. Karen Mayne, a Democrat from West Valley City and sponsor of SB30, said she couldn't assure Weiler that passing the bill wouldn't tip the scale and put Utah's death penalty in jeopardy with the courts.

    "I can't give you assurance that tomorrow the sun is going to come up," Mayne said. "We can lawyer this all day long. And every lawyer and prosecutor has different opinions. They're paid from different circumstances to have those opinions. And I respect that."

    2 Democrats joined 3 Republicans in voting to move the bill to the Senate floor for further consideration.

    (Source: The Salt Lake Tribune)
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  2. #62
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Support for the death penalty waning in Utah, study says

    By McKenzie Romero
    The Deseret News

    SALT LAKE CITY — A new study about the costs and public opinions concerning the death penalty in Utah suggests support for capital punishment may be waning in the state.

    But perhaps more than anything, the study released Friday by the state's Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice highlights the complexities of trying to evaluate the expense and impact of the death penalty.

    From June 2016 to July 2017, the 13-person working group considered the costs and public opinions associated with the death penalty, as well as the aggravating factors that push a crime to a capital level, victims' rights and practices in other states.

    In most of the areas it focused on, the working group came up inconclusive.

    While Utahns have traditionally viewed the death penalty favorably, the study notes, five polls about the issue over the past three years yielded somewhat inconsistent results.

    Three polls by Dan Jones & Associates, an in-state pollster, showed half to two-thirds of Utahns surveyed favor the death penalty, the study states. However, two polls by Public Policy Polling, an out-of-state company, showed less support for the death penalty, with more than half of respondents supporting replacing it.

    Based on those findings, the working group concluded, "It is probably reasonable to suggest simply that public support for the death penalty in Utah is declining over previous highs, based on national data and consistently lower support from younger respondents in the Utah polls."

    Regarding the costs of death penalty cases in Utah, the study pointed to two previous evaluations. The Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers found last year that over 20 years, the state spent nearly $40 million prosecuting 165 death-penalty eligible cases, two of which ended in executions.

    That translates to an extra $237,900 spent on each case as compared to a murder case, the study states.

    A 2012 evaluation by the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst estimated that from trial to execution, a death penalty case in Utah costs nearly $1.7 million more than a case ending instead in life in prison without parole, the commission's study notes.

    The findings prompted Utah Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty to call Friday for lawmakers to take a closer look at the costs of capital punishment in the state.

    "This report should give pause to anyone who thought that because capital punishment is so rarely used in Utah that the cost of maintaining a death penalty would be negligible," said Kevin Greene, the organization's state director. "We have been spending tons of money without much in return and we hope lawmakers will closely examine the report and agree that the death penalty is anything but fiscally conservative."

    The Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice study did not reach any conclusions regarding limiting or expanding aggravating factors that would make a case eligible for the death penalty. It also did not make any findings about the impacts on the rights of victims in capital cases, and noted without further conclusion that states across the nation are moving away from the death penalty.

    https://www.deseretnews.com/article/...tudy-says.html
    Last edited by Moh; 02-10-2018 at 07:48 AM. Reason: Corrected name of source.
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  3. #63
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Utah Lawmakers Once Again Consider Ending Death Penalty

    Utah lawmakers are once again considering getting rid of the death penalty, two years after legislators came close to making the move.

    U.S. News & World Report

    SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah lawmakers are once again considering getting rid of the death penalty, two years after legislators came close to making the move.

    The Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday that a bill sponsored by Republican state Rep. Gage Froerer of Huntsville would prohibit Utah prosecutors from seeking the death penalty starting May 8. The nine men currently on death row would still be executed.

    Utah legislators came close to abolishing the death penalty in 2016 — but the bill never reached the House floor before the midnight deadline on the last night of session. The issue was not considered during last year's session.

    Froerer said he will elaborate on the legislation later this week.

    If passed, Utah would join 19 other states and the District of Columbia in outlawing capital punishment.

    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...-death-penalty
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  4. #64
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    Lawmaker pulls bill to repeal death penalty in Utah

    By Dennis Romboy
    Deseret News

    SALT LAKE CITY — Another attempt to abolish the death penalty in Utah fell short Friday.

    Rep. Gage Froerer, R-Huntsville, pulled his bill that would have repealed capital punishment. HB379 would have banned the state from seeking the death penalty for aggravated murder committed after May 7, 2018. It would not have affected the nine men on Utah's death row now.

    Given the lateness in the session and the impact the measure would have on the state, it's best left to a future legislature, he told his colleagues on the House floor.

    "This is not an easy issue," said Froerer, who isn't seeking re-election after 12 years in the House. "I appreciate that the dialog was always done in a respectful, thoughtful manner."

    Froerer couldn't muster the votes to pass the bill in the House, marking the second time in three years that an effort to repeal the death penalty wilted in the chamber. In 2016, the Senate narrowly passed a repeal bill but was held in the House.

    Froerer is among a number of Republican legislators, including House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, who favor doing away with executions. Hughes also is not seeking re-election.

    Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, a staunch proponent of capital punishment, commended Froerer for being a "gentleman" as lawmakers debated the issue.

    "I just want to thank the representative for looking at the bill and the body and making the motion so we don't spend a lot of time debating something that may or may not have gone through," he said.

    Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, thanked Froerer for those who "looked at this a different way."

    "It's always good to debate these issues, issues of life and death, issues that affect many, many people — people in the system, people out of the system, the assailant, the families," he said.

    The House Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Committee last week held an emotional hearing on the issue where families of murder victims testified for and against the death penalty. The panel endorsed the bill 7-4.

    Utah has executed seven men since the nationwide moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in 1976, the last one being Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010. Four died by lethal injection and three by firing squad.

    https://www.deseretnews.com/article/...y-in-utah.html
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  5. #65
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    The men on Utah’s death row and how they want to die

    POSTED 7:31 PM, FEBRUARY 12, 2016, BY BEN WINSLOW, UPDATED AT 09:48AM, FEBRUARY 13, 2016



    SALT LAKE CITY — Nine men are on Utah’s death row awaiting execution.

    There is no timetable for when each one will be put to death, because each has a series of appeals in the works. Three of them have elected to die by firing squad, grandfathered in before it was done away with as a primary method of execution.

    Last year, the Utah State Legislature passed by a bill by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, that brought back the firing squad as a method of execution should lethal injection not be available.

    Right now, the Utah Department of Corrections has said, it does not have the drugs to carry out a lethal injection execution.



    Corrections officials provided to FOX 13 this list of the death row inmates and how they have elected to die:

    Michael Anthony Archuleta, 52

    Sentenced to death: 12/21/1989

    Method: Lethal injection (assigned after he did not select a method)

    Douglas Stewart Carter, 59

    Sentenced to death: 12/27/1985 (overturned in 1989)

    Resentenced to death: 01/27/1992

    Method: Lethal injection (assigned after he did not select a method)

    Taberon Dave Honie, 39

    Sentenced to death: 05/20/1999

    Method: Not specified (previously has stated firing squad)

    Troy Michael Kell, 46

    Sentenced to death: 08/08/1996

    Method: Firing squad

    Ronald Watson Lafferty, 73

    Sentenced to death: 05/07/1985 (subsequently granted new trial)

    Resentenced to death: 04/23/1996

    Method: Firing squad

    Floyd Eugene Maestas, 58

    Sentence to death: 02/01/2008

    Method: Lethal injection

    Ralph Leroy Menzies, 56

    Sentenced to death: 03/23/1988

    Method: Firing squad

    Von Lester Taylor, 49

    Sentenced to death: 05/24/1991

    Method: Lethal injection

    Douglas Lovell, 57

    Sentenced to death: 08/05/1993 (subsequently granted new trial)

    Resentenced to death: 04/01/2015

    Method: Lethal injection


    https://fox13now.com/2016/02/12/the-...urce=related_1
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  6. #66
    aclay
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    Can anyone tell me how close this state is to carrying out another execution?

  7. #67
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Taberone Honie will possibly be done his appeals in 2-3 years.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  8. #68
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    KSL Investigates: Utah’s Death Row

    DRAPER, Utah — The Utah Department of Corrections has quietly ended a decades-long practice of housing Utah State Prison inmates who are under sentence of death in maximum security, allowing the majority of them to move into medium-security cell blocks.

    In an interview for KSL’s investigative podcast series COLD, Corrections Director Brian Nielson denied the department has done away with death row.

    “As far as the policy of death penalty, again, that’s the Legislature’s call,” Nielson said.

    But families of the victims in those death penalty cases were not notified of the housing change for some of Utah’s most notorious killers, which now provides inmates who are sentenced to death far greater privileges than they’ve previously enjoyed.

    “You call it what you guys want to, I call it the state of Utah’s getting rid of death row,” Matt Hunsaker told KSL’s Investigators.

    Hunsaker’s mother, Maurine Hunsaker, was murdered in 1986 by a man who’s currently incarcerated under sentence of death.

    The Utah Department of Corrections uses a classification system to determine where inmates are housed and what privileges they are allowed. The system, first adopted in the 1980s, requires incoming inmates to undergo an assessment, during which prison staff review information about the inmate’s crime and behavior.

    The assessment results in an inmate being assigned a “custody level” of 1 through 4. According to the department’s own prison operations manual, custody level 1 “denotes inmates that pose the highest threat to institutional security and the safety of staff, other inmates and/or self.” Level 1 inmates are to be housed in maximum security.

    The manual says death row inmates should be automatically assigned level 1 status at intake. The classification protocol allows most inmates to undergo reassessment at regular intervals throughout the course of their incarceration. But the manual also says death row inmates do not need to be reassessed “unless circumstances change regarding their sentence.”

    Corrections Director Brian Nielson told KSL the current version of the classification system, which was last updated in 2019, is currently under review.

    The classification system detailed in the prison operations manual does not describe any means by which an inmate sentenced to death can trigger a move off of level 1 status, other than having the death sentence overturned on appeal or commuted by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.

    Nielson said what’s now allowing death row inmates out of maximum security is a 2005 department policy called “Last Chance.”

    “They’ve really had to demonstrate that they can function in that setting ahead of time and then we test the waters in small incremental ways to help them get there,” Nielson said. “We’ve had a couple make it that far but it’s taken 13, 14 years to get there.”

    KSL’s review reveals more than “a couple” death row inmates have taken advantage of the Last Chance policy. The department’s online offender search tool shows of the seven men currently under sentence of death in Utah, five are currently living in medium-security housing units, nicknamed Wasatch and Oquirrh, at the Draper prison.

    KSL requested a copy of the Last Chance policy under Utah’s open records law in an effort to verify Nielson’s statements. The Corrections Department refused to provide it, claiming the policy was “protected.”

    There are other indications the change that’s allowed death row inmates out of maximum security was a more recent development.

    In 2011, the department posted a document to its website that included a list of the men who were at that time sentenced to die in Utah. The document included a page titled “Life on Death Row” that listed facts about living arrangements for condemned inmates.

    Those included only being allowed out of their cells for three hours each day, always being handcuffed and shackled when interacting with officers, only being allowed visits on weekends and then only through a barrier, always being escorted by SWAT officers when out of the section and other stringent restrictions.

    The document was updated and republished in November of 2019, following the death of inmate Ron Lafferty from natural causes. The page describing life on death row remained in the 2019 update.

    The link to the document from the department’s website went dead sometime thereafter. Following an inquiry from KSL in May of 2021, the department provided another updated version of the document. The 2021 update no longer includes the page about life on death row.

    A section of the department’s website that describes the different facilities at the Draper prison says the Uinta 1 building is the highest security facility in Utah’s prison system. That web page, first published in 2013, says Uinta 1 is home to death row. The website says inmates housed in Uinta 1 “have the ability to earn greater privileges and transition to other areas over time by demonstrating positive behavior.”

    But the website goes on to says “death-row inmates are the only exception, requiring a sentence to be overturned or commuted to life.”

    A department pamphlet for friends and family of inmates first published in 2013 also includes a breakdown of the level classification system described earlier in this article.

    “Inmates are classified to place them in the proper housing unit and security level in an attempt to provide safety for the community, staff, and other inmates,” the friends and family pamphlet reads.

    The pamphlet says level 1 is reserved for death row inmates, who are said to be housed in the Draper prison’s maximum-security Uinta facilities. It lists the restrictions for level 1 inmates as a “highly structured and supervised environment; typically confined to cell 23 hours a day; restrained in the presence of non-inmates.”

    Neither the department’s website nor its pamphlet for friends and family make any mention of a policy that would allow death row inmates a pathway out of maximum security, despite both having been published years after Nielson said the secretive Last Chance policy was enacted.

    Families of the victims of the men who are currently facing death sentences in Utah were not notified by the department of any policy change, past or present, that would allow those men out of maximum security.

    “They’re not wanting this to get out because they don’t want somebody to have to be accountable for it,” Matt Hunsaker told KSL TV.

    Ralph Leroy Menzies was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in March of 1988 for killing Hunsaker’s mother. For the majority of the more than 30 years since, Menzies has been housed in Uinta 1.

    The Corrections Department’s offender search tool shows Menzies is currently housed in the Draper prison’s medium-security Wasatch facility.

    Hunsaker only became aware Menzies’ housing situation had changed when informed by KSL. He expressed frustration, saying he’s been unable to get a straight answer from anyone in state government as to when or why the change was made.

    “Why did you change now and why didn’t you give us the respect to call us,” Hunsaker said.

    In medium security, inmates are provided greater opportunities for employment and recreation. The majority are afforded much more out-of-cell time than maximum-security inmates. They’re able to more easily associate with one another.

    “These men are extremely dangerous, they are manipulative and they have nothing to lose,” Kim Salazar said.

    Douglas Lovell murdered Salazar’s mother, Joyce Yost, in 1985 to prevent Yost from testifying against him in a rape trial. Lovell had twice attempted to recruit other men he’d met during a previous stay in prison to kill Yost on his behalf, before finally killing her himself.

    Lovell is among the five inmates under sentence of death who prison staff have moved out of maximum security. Salazar worries the change will allow Lovell to network with others whom he might enlist to settle scores on the outside.

    “He is known to have paid people to do his heavy lifting,” Salazar said. “These folks they are housed with now will eventually get out.”

    Brian Nielson, the Corrections Director, said those concerns were considered.

    “There’s always a balance there,” Nielson said. “There’s always that risk and needs assessment that happens and the ongoing process to make sure that we’re providing for safety and security and also providing for opportunities for those that need them.”

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/kslnews...death-row/amp/
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  9. #69
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    ‘Cold’: Yost family frustrated by killer’s moves to avoid death penalty

    The second season of KSL’s investigative podcast series “COLD”, Justice for Joyce,” concludes this week with the release of the season’s 13th episode.

    The episode details the efforts of various KSL staff to contact death row inmate Douglas Lovell and request an interview with him about his murder of Joyce Yost in 1985.

    “Whenever I am in the news, I know it is very upsetting to the family and loved ones of Ms. Yost,” Lovell wrote in a Nov. 9, 2019 letter refusing one such interview request. “I believe an interview with you will most [sic] get back to Ms. Yost’s family. I hope you will understand and appreciate my decision.”

    KSL had made contact with Yost’s daughter Kim Salazar prior to reaching out to Lovell. In a follow-up letter, KSL informed Lovell that Yost’s family knew of and supported the interview request, in the hopes it might lead to the recovery of their mother’s remains.

    Lovell did not respond to that follow-up letter.

    “If he were trying to minimize our pain and suffering at this point, we wouldn’t still be on a 23B remand 35 years later,” Salazar said. “He’d be done. This thing would be done.”

    History of the case

    “Cold’s” second season has detailed the entire history of the Joyce Yost case, beginning on the night in April of 1985 when Lovell first saw Yost and followed her home from a club in Clearfield. Lovell had confronted Yost outside her South Ogden apartment, raped her, kidnapped her and then raped her again at his own home.

    Yost managed to convince Lovell to release her by promising not to report what he’d done. She then reneged on that promise, providing a detailed account of the rape to Clearfield police detective William “Bill” Holthaus.

    “[Lovell] was quite the cad,” Holthaus told COLD. “Separated from his wife, chasing women around. He just struck me as a guy who didn’t respect women much.”

    Holthaus had arrested Lovell, but a series of miscues and miscommunications allowed Lovell to remain out of jail ahead of a trial. Then, 10 days before the scheduled trial, Yost disappeared.

    Disappearance of Joyce Yost

    South Ogden police suspected Lovell had killed Yost but lacked any firm evidence linking him to her disappearance.

    A Davis County jury convicted Lovell of kidnapping and sexual assault even in Yost’s absence. He began serving a sentence of 15-years-to-life in January of 1986.

    Lovell was still incarcerated in 1991 when his ex-wife Rhonda Buttars provided South Ogden Sgt. Terry Carpenter a detailed account of how her ex-husband had killed Yost to keep her from testifying.

    Buttars twice wore a hidden audio recording device into the Utah State Prison at the request of police, capturing Lovell making incriminating statements about Yost’s murder.

    “We got so much information from [Buttars] that we would never have gotten without her,” Carpenter said in an interview for “Cold.”

    Doug Lovell’s two death sentences

    Buttars received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her cooperation, which allowed Weber County prosecutors to charge Lovell with capital homicide in 1992. He pleaded guilty a year later and received a death sentence.

    Lovell attempted to withdraw the guilty plea a short time later. That request became the subject of an appeal that languished for years. The Utah Supreme Court at last decided in 2010 that Lovell should be allowed to take back the plea due to a technical error made by the judge during a 1993 sentencing hearing.

    The decision cleared the way for Lovell to stand trial, which he did in March of 2015. His defense team did not contest his guilt, instead attempting to convince the jury Lovell deserved a sentence of life with a chance of parole.

    The defense used character witnesses to make the argument Lovell had reformed in the 30 years since he’d first assaulted Joyce Yost. The jury was not swayed and decided by unanimous vote that Lovell should receive the death penalty.

    Frustration for Joyce Yost’s children

    That second death sentence is now on appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. Lovell has alleged one of his court-appointed attorneys, Sean Young, acted deficiently during the 2015 trial.

    ost’s daughter expressed frustration that the appeals process continues to drag on more than 35 years after her murder.

    “I think that we have a better chance of him dying of old age in there than we do of him dying by the hand of the state at this point,” Kim Salazar said.

    Greg Roberts, Yost’s son, said Lovell has succeeded in drawing the focus off his mother and the brutal facts of her murder.

    “I think Doug Lovell likes the limelight,” Roberts said. “This horrible perpetrator becomes the story and that’s difficult because she was so awesome and he took all that away.”

    Justice for Joyce Yost?

    If Lovell succeeds in winning an appeal of the 2015 death sentence, it could clear the way for yet another trial.

    William Holthaus, the detective who originally arrested Lovell following the rape in April of 1985, said he will be there to testify again if necessary.

    “Some people aren’t even here that were involved in that case anymore. They’re gone,” Holthaus said. “I plan on staying.”

    Holthaus said he’d be surprised if prosecutors again sought a death verdict in the case, if the high court overturns the the jury’s decision. But he also said he doesn’t believe Lovell will ever succeed in getting out of prison.

    “He’ll never get out and I think that’s punishment enough,” Holthaus said.

    The podcast “COLD” is an Amazon Music exclusive. Listeners can find and follow “COLD” on the free Amazon Music app or by visiting www.thecoldpodcast.com.

    https://ktar.com/story/4517455/cold-...death-penalty/
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  10. #70
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Utah GOP Gov. Cox has supported Utah's death penalty in the past. But now he's reevaluating

    By Katie McKellar
    Deseret News

    As an effort to repeal and replace Utah's death penalty statue gears up, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is leaving the door open for the debate to take place, saying he's open to "reevaluating" his feelings on the law.

    The Republican governor, a past supporter of Utah's death penalty, said during his monthly PBS Utah news conference Thursday that he's "evaluating" his position on the proposed legislation, and he hasn't made a final decision.

    However, Cox said he's "very interested" to see the bill, which as currently drafted would repeal Utah's capital punishment law and replace it with a new sentence for aggravated murder of 45 years to life in prison.

    The Utah Legislature will debate the proposal in its next general session slated for January. Bill sponsors Rep. Lowry Snow, R-Santa Clara, and Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, are both conservatives who say they've had changes of heart on whether the death penalty is a just or viable form of punishment.

    Cox said he has supported capital punishment in the past, "but certainly I've had occasion to reevaluate my feelings about the death penalty."

    "I think that certainly anytime we take a life, especially the government taking a life, it's a very conservative thing to do to pause and make sure we always get that one right," he said.

    Cox added that he's "confident" people convicted of capital crimes in Utah have been rightfully executed, "but I'm not confident that across the country that has always been the case, and certainly been troubled by some of the cases that have been out there."

    Since 1973, 185 death row inmates have been exonerated in the U.S., according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit that provides data and analysis on capital punishment.

    "There's no way to tell how many of the 1,534 people executed since 1976 may also have been innocent," the Death Penalty Information Center says on its website, noting "courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead."

    The governor said he's also interested in talking to and hearing from victims' families, who have experienced what it's like to be part of a convicted killer's often decadeslong appeals process.

    "That's a critical piece of this conversation," Cox said, noting he's gathered from past discussions that "there seems to be a little bit of a change in sentiment" among those families who experience the court appellate process and "having to relive that over and over and over again, maybe that's not the best thing for them."

    Overall, Cox said it's a debate that needs to play out, and he's not picking sides yet.

    "All I can say is that I'm anxious to have this conversation," he said, "and to listen to all sides, and we'll make the right decision."

    https://www.ksl.com/article/50253088...-re-evaluating
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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