DOVER, Del.- Republican lawmakers have introduced another proposal to restore Delaware's ability to implement capital punishment for certain murder cases.
House Republicans plan to file the Egregious Crimes Accountability Act, which spells out four categories of aggravating circumstances attached to a murder for which prosecutors could consider capital punishment:
- Mass Murder: The defendant’s actions resulted in the deaths of three or more people in a public venue.
- Repeat Offender: The defendant was previously convicted of murder.
- Horribly Inhumane: The murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhumane involving torture, depravity, an explosive device, weapon of mass destruction, or poison.
- Hate Crimes: The murder was committed as a hate crime
State House Minority Leader Danny Short, R-Seaford, said Delaware prosecutors have been unable to seek capital punishment for about three-and-half years after the state death penalty statute was ruled unconstitutional in 2016.
Restoring capital punishment would also act as a deterrent to events like the 2017 inmate uprising at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center that left a correctional officer dead, Short said.
"Where was the accountability?" he said, noting that the only murder conviction found in connection to the prison riot went to an inmate already serving a life term for murder.
Attempts to either restore Delaware's death penalty or remove the capital punishment statute from state law have failed in previous years. A bill re-instating the death penalty is currently awaiting a House committee but has not received one despite being introduced in May 2019.
Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover), a staunch death penalty opponent who heads the committee considering the current death penalty proposal, said he will not support the anticipated bill to restore the death penalty.
"It doesn't make any difference at all," he said.
Gov. John Carney (D) has said he would only consider support for re-instating the death penalty if it was only applied to those who murder law enforcement officers. The planned capital punishment legislation does not meet those stipulations.
A Carney spokesman on Wednesday re-iterated that the governor's position has not changed.
Short said he hopes to be able to discuss the issue with the governor.
"I hope he'll agree with us that these are egregious crimes that deserve the opportunity for the prosecution to ask for the death penalty," he said.
