State lawmakers began a year-long legislative study of the death penalty yesterday. The committee is charged with providing the legislature recommendations on making the process work.
The group is made up of lawmakers, defense attorneys, prosecutors and victims’ rights advocates.
Capitol Hill will spend a year investigating the issues surrounding the death penalty, including fairness, the length of time between sentencing and execution, and the appeal process.
[Lawmakers Begin Committee On Death Penalty - WKRN - 10-15-07]
UPDATE 11:31a.m. – But are you willing to pay for it? Author of Tennessee’s death penalty tells lawmakers if they want the process to work they ought to fund it.
Attorney David Raybin, who wrote Tennessee’s death penalty statute when he was a prosecutor, is urging lawmakers to adequately fund it.
At a meeting of a select committee on the death penalty yesterday, Raybin told legislators that prosecuting capital offenses is a “luxury item” and requires adequate funding for defendants.
[Author of death penalty statute calls for better funding of it - AP - 10-16-07]
