Gail Chasey ('08) Serves in State Legislature

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Death Penalty Repeal Advances

By Gabriela C. Guzman
Journal Capitol Bureau

SANTA FE— Legislation to repeal the death penalty in New Mexico passed its first hurdle Tuesday.

The House Consumer and Public Affairs committee approved HB 190 in a party-line vote, but not before supporters and opponents debated capital punishment.

Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, the committee's chairwoman and the bill's sponsor, said the measure would replace the state's death sentence with a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Chasey, who has introduced bills to eliminate the death penalty since 1999, cited a number of reasons for her efforts.

"We know from scientific evidence that the death penalty does not prevent crimes. We wish that it did," Chasey told the committee.

Also, the legal process involved in death penalty cases is extensive and costly, Chasey said.

Patti March, a board member of New Mexico Survivors of Homicide, told the committee that no monetary value can be attached to the loss of a loved one. March's only son was murdered in Albuquerque in 1995.

Even if a murderer is sentenced to life in prison, the possibility still exists that his or her life sentence could be commuted, March said in the standing-room-only committee room.

The murderer still has hope, she said. "The victim does not get to participate in the good life."

A legislative analysis of Chasey's bill says repealing the death penalty would save New Mexico money. For example, to summon juries in a death penalty case costs New Mexico between $20,000 to $25,000, compared to the $7,000 to $8,000 cost of a non-death penalty case.

The analysis also said that fewer than half of the state's death penalty cases end in a death sentence.

Terry Clark, in November 2001, was the last person to be executed by the state of New Mexico. Clark pled guilty to the 1986 kidnapping, rape and murder of 9-year-old Dena Lynn Gore of Artesia.

Before Clark, New Mexico had not executed anyone in 41 years.

"Why do we kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?" asked Dr. Steven Spencer, the retired director of medical services for the New Mexico Corrections Department.

Rev. Holly Beaumont of Santa Fe said that, as long as the country's judicial system is vulnerable to human error, mistakes will creep into death penalty cases.

While innocent people have been placed on death row in other states, the problem has not occurred in New Mexico, said Donald Gallegos, president of the New Mexico District Attorneys Association and the district attorney in Taos.

"The protections are there," Gallegos said.

Chasey's bill moved on to the House Judiciary Committee.