Execution bill goes to Senate

Erin Neff

Wednesday, April 25, 2001 | 11:05 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- It's an issue that troubles the governor, pits Republicans against Democrats and may lead to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Should mentally retarded people be executed for committing capital offenses?

The Assembly on Tuesday said no by approving Assembly Bill 353 -- a measure to remove the death sentence for defendants who prove they are mentally retarded. The bill, sponsored by Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, says such a determination will be based partly on the 70 IQ benchmark already used by the state in granting services to the mentally retarded.

The bill is now referred to the Senate.

"I've become convinced that executing the mentally retarded does not meet the goals of the death penalty," Leslie said.

Under the bill, those proven to be mentally retarded would instead be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

The measure passed 28-11, with three absent and with John Carpenter, R-Elko, David Humke, R-Reno and Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, all crossing party lines to support the measure.

After the vote, Humke, who spoke against the measure, said he mistakenly cast an aye vote for the bill. He did not, however, ask to reconsider.

The bill is one of three main measures introduced this session to limit, in some way, how the death penalty is applied. Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani had a bill that would abolish the death sentence for those under 18. That age requirement was amended out of the version of the bill that passed the Assembly on Monday.

In the Senate, Joe Neal's bill to abolish the death penalty was amended to impose a two-year moratorium on the sentence to study alleged biases and problems with the penalty. That bill cleared the Senate and is awaiting a hearing in the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

Greg Brower, R-Reno, said Leslie's bill was another way death penalty opponents could "chip away" at a sentence they find objectionable.

"Make no mistake about it," Brower said, referring to the various death penalty measures active in the Legislature. "They all chip away at the state's ability to impose the death penalty and at a jury's ability to impose the death penalty."

Leslie argued that while juries can consider mitigating factors at trial, she believed lawmakers should set policy on the issue.

"I believe the Legislature should decide who should be executed in this state, not the jury," Leslie said.

One somewhat surprise supporter was Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, a deputy chief in the Henderson Police Department, and a longtime advocate of the death penalty.

"I don't think there's a single person in this body who has sat with, been with and talked to as many broken families in death penalty cases as I have," said Perkins, D-Henderson.