Jackson Free Press

The Senate passed a bill that expands the use of the death penalty in the state. Senate Bill 2921 provides that multiple murders in a single incident or a murder committed in conjunction with an attempted murder—a classification that did not exist in Mississippi until the Legislature took up a bill creating the classification this year—shall constitute capital murder, which comes with the possibility of a death sentence.

Mitigating circumstances include consideration of the defendant's age, criminal history, emotional duress and whether or not the defendant is an accomplice whose participation in the crime was minor, among other things.

Sen. David Blount could not be reached for comment on his reasons behind authoring the bill, but the impact the law has on the state's crime statistics is negligible.

In fact, moving from civilian on death row to corpse appears to be no easy feat. The state currently has 65 inmates wasting away on death row at the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and they'll likely stay there a good long while if the state trend continues. Mississippi has only put to death five inmates since 1989, the last being Bobby Wilcher in 2006, by lethal injection, for a double murder.

Previous Comments

ID

68291

Comment

Given the fact that two former prisoners on Mississippi's death row have been released from prison because they were INNOCENT, this bill -- even if it does have a small impact on capital prosecutions -- is going the WRONG direction. At best, it's a shameless political ploy to sound "anti-crime" and hope it doesn't really increase executions. At worst, it's added weight on the wrong side of the scale in the Mississippi criminal injustice system. Wasn't David Blount supposed to be a "progressive Democrat"? I'm thankful the JFP pulled its endorsement of him before the election. He's becoming just another pol looking for a lifetime career at our expense.

Author

GenShermansGhost

Date

2008-03-20T10:14:04-06:00