Lawmakers, citing marathon bombings, propose restoring death penalty in Massachusetts
Republican US Senate Daniel B. Winslow joined a bipartisan group of legislators who today proposed restoring the death penalty in Massachusetts, seizing on terror attacks at the Boston Marathon as an impetus.
“After we witnessed all of that carnage last week, who could be against a bill like this?” asked lead sponsor, state Representative James R. Miceli.
Miceli, a Wilmington Democrat, had proposed the measure as an amendment to the state budget even before the terrorist attacks, he said. But he and fellow legislators said they would push for a debate in the House this week citing the marathon tragedy, and the attacks against police officers. “This is the time to step up to the plate and do it,” Miceli said.
The bill is designed to guard against attacks on the system of justice itself -- police officers, correctional officers, witnesses, and judges, said Winslow, who drafted the bill when he was legal counsel in former Governor Mitt Romney’s administration.
“We have the option on the federal side. We should have the same option on the state side for the same reasons,” Winslow said.
Romney had introduced the measure in 2005, claiming it would set the “gold standard” for capital punishment cases. But despite the momentum and Romney’s assurances that such a measure would be foolproof, that measure went down to defeat in the Democratic-led legislature.
Miceli said he suspects Democratic leadership will scuttle a vote on the amendment to protect members from taking a sensitive vote at a difficult time in Boston.
“The men and women that put their lives on the line every day deserve protection and assurance,” said State Representative Shaunna O’Connell, a Taunton Republican.
The lawmakers noted that the federal charges brought Tuesday against the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, cover only the marathon bombings that killed three and injured 282 people not the shootouts with police in which he is also implicated.
State officials from Middlesex County could bring additional charges or murder or mayhem for the shooting death of MIT police officer Sean Collier , the shooting of MBTA officer Richard Donohue Jr., and a gunfight in Watertown Friday morning. But state charges would not carry a potential death penalty.
“What if he were not going to be federally charged?” O’Connell said. “In Massachusetts, there would be no death penalty for him.”
http://www.boston.com/politicalintel...QmO/story.html
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