Four bills aimed at reducing or eliminating the use of the death penalty in South Dakota await our Legislature's attention: Senate Bill 121 would repeal the death penalty in all future cases. SB 122 would continge issuance of a death…
Posts tagged as “death penalty”
The South Dakota Legislature will debate the death penalty again this session. Democratic Senator Bernie Hunhoff (D-18/Yankton) and Republican Rep. Steve Hickey (R-9/Sioux Falls) lead a bipartisan team of sponsors on Senate Bill 121, which would remove death from the…
Back in 2013, the Legislature concluded that its Legislative Research Council wasn't keeping pace with evolving technology and legislators' demands. They got LRC director Jim Fry to resign, and in the summer of 2014 they hired Jason Hancock to run…
An Orange County, California, judge has ruled the state's death penalty unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney says California's death penalty inflicts cruel and unusual punishment, not because state-sanctioned killing of captive convicts is abhorrent, but because California…
Unlike Annette Bosworth, Denny Davis really is motivated by his Christian faith to take political action. The Catholic deacon directs South Dakotans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Davis's group supported the bill Rep. Steve Hickey (R-9/Sioux Falls) brought to…
Rep. Kristin Conzet (R-32/Rapid City) favored me with a Tweet yesterday. Yesterday she was one of three Republican legislators who voted against killing House Bill 1183, Rep. Steve Hickey's (R-9/Sioux Falls) failed attempt to repeal South Dakota's death penalty. During…
...and has to help kill an abortion ban. Rep. Rev. Steve Hickey is having a tough week. He saw two measures he sponsored defeated in committee, and he had to help kill a third that he decided was too risky…
While we wait for House State Affairs to pick a day to hear House Bill 1183, Rep. Steve Hickey's effort to end South Dakota's use of the death penalty, the Legislative Research Council has weighed in with its analysis of…