A state Senate committee has approved a measure that would clarify South Dakota laws dealing with the death penalty.
Laurie Feiler, deputy secretary of the state Corrections Department, said the bill establishes new procedures that circuit judges would use to determine whether an execution should be stopped because a death-row inmate is mentally incompetent.
SB53 also clarifies that people who take part in good faith in an execution are generally immune from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution.
South Dakota held its first execution in six decades last year when Elijah Page was killed by lethal injection for the 2000 murder of Chester Allan Poage, 19, near Spearfish. Page stopped his appeals and asked to be executed.
Current law provides that when a death-row inmate appears to be mentally incompetent, the prison warden must notify the governor, who then appoints a panel of physicians to determine whether the inmate is mentally competent to be executed.
The bill would shift the proceedings to circuit court, where the circuit judge could order psychiatric examinations and hold hearings to determine whether an inmate is competent to be executed. If an inmate was found to be incompetent to stand trial, a periodic review would be done and an execution could be rescheduled once the inmate became mentally competent.
DOC lawyer Max Gors said an inmate is mentally competent to be executed if the inmate knows he is going to be executed and why. A person can be mentally competent when convicted, but become "pretty flaked out" by the time an execution is scheduled after years of appeals, he said.
The bill also clarifies the procedures to be followed if a female death-row inmate is pregnant. The execution is suspended until after the child is born.
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