death penalty news January 29, 2005
WISCONSIN: Lawmaker tries again to bring back death penalty A state senator who has fought for more than a decade to reinstate the death penalty in Wisconsin said Saturday he's going to try again. State Senate President Alan Lasee, R-DePere, plans to introduce a resolution, perhaps as early as this week, calling for a statewide advisory referendum on bringing back capital punishment in especially gruesome murders. "The world we live in continues to get more violent," Lasee said. "I've never argued the death penalty is a deterrent, but it certainly brings finality for the victim's family." Wisconsin abolished the death penalty in 1853 and has the longest-running prohibition on capital punishment of any state in the country, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau. John Huebscher, executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, which opposes capital punishment, said lawmakers should concentrate on making health care affordable and improving the state's schools rather than sanctioning killing. "Wisconsin is a relatively safe place with a humane policy toward human life," Huebscher said. "We don't foster the value of human life by taking it, even when it is the state that takes the life." Lasee has pushed bills to restore the death penalty since the 1990s, but they've gotten no traction. He said the death penalty would have been fitting for Milwaukee serial killer Jeffery Dahmer and child serial killer David Spanbauer. The new referendum would ask Wisconsinites if they would favor death by lethal injection for people who commit what Lasee called "horrendous" murders and multiple murders or those who kill children. Death penalty opponents have complained that DNA evidence has proven many death row inmates' innocence. In Wisconsin, Steven Avery was freed from prison in 2003 after spending 18 years there for rape after DNA evidence showed he didn't do it. Lasee said under his plan a suspect's guilt would have to be confirmed through DNA evidence. If there's no DNA, a person couldn't be put to death, he said. The referendum could take place during either spring or fall elections next year, Lasee said. The vote wouldn't be binding, but it would show lawmakers their constituents support the death penalty, Lasee said, paving the way for legislation. Still, he didn't have high hopes for the resolution. Lawmakers are focused on the budget right now, he said. The state faces a $1.6 billion deficit for the two-year period that ends June 30, 2007, brought on by shrinking revenues. "I have no illusions this is just going to fly at all," he said. "We've got a lot of other priorities out here like the budget and the deficits. (But) if we can get it to a referendum and allow people to have a say on the matter, if we pass legislation, the governor and other legislators would be hard pressed to vote against it," Lasee said. The resolution calling for the vote would have to pass both the Senate and the Assembly to take effect. Lasee said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, a capital punishment opponent, has no say in approving legislative resolutions as he does bills. Republicans control the Senate 19-14 and the Assembly 60-39. Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center and Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo, didn't return messages from The Associated Press Saturday. Senate Minority Leader Judy Robson, D-Beloit, said keeping prisoners on death row as they exhaust their appeals is costly. "Wisconsin has gotten along fine for 150 years without the death penalty," Robson said. Doyle spokesman Dan Leistikow said Wisconsin already has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. "As a former attorney general and prosecutor, the governor doesn't think the death penalty would make us any safer," Leistikow said. Doyle served as attorney general before he was elected governor in 2002. A 2003 Badger Poll, a survey conducted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Capital Times of Madison newspapers, found 64 percent of 509 residents questioned supported the death penalty. (source: AP / Duluth (Minnesota) News Tribune)
