NEWS

Historic vote: Will Delaware repeal the death penalty?

Governor has said he will sign bill if it passes

Jessica Masulli Reyes
The News Journal
Members of the Complexities of Color Coalition, the NAACP Delaware State Conference, the Interdenominational Ministers Action Council of Delaware, the Delaware Latino Restorative Justice Project hold a news conference to address the racial inequities in Delaware’s criminal justice system at Legislative Hall on Wednesday. Lawmakers on Thursday are scheduled to vote on a repeal of Delaware's death penalty.
  • State House members are voting on repealing Delaware's death penalty.
  • The measure passed the Senate in April, but was blocked by a House committee.
  • Delaware is one of 32 states with capital punishment.

A week ago, a vote on legislation to repeal Delaware's death penalty was improbable, but now a historic decision that could end the practice in Delaware will be before the House of Representatives on Thursday.

Both sides are gearing up for the vote – lobbying lawmakers who are on the fence, counting heads and making last-minute public pleas.

Those in favor of the legislation say the death penalty is bad public policy and has unequally targeted African-Americans and the poor; those against it say capital punishment is an effective tool and gives family members justice after their loved ones are murdered.

The debate heated up Wednesday when lawmakers, activists and pastors gathered at Legislative Hall to call for the bill's passage.

Standing in the location where the vote will take place, Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover, the bill's prime House sponsor, said Delaware is on the edge of an important decision.

"In the last few years, we've made huge strides in advancing civil rights," he said. "We have accomplished things that seemed impossible even a decade ago, ending the status quo in the interest of equality, fairness and tolerance. But our battle isn't over."

Lynn said the worst affront to these equal justice efforts is the death penalty.

"We are out of patience," said the Rev. Donald Morton, director of the Complexities of Color Agenda, an advocacy group seeking to raise awareness about race issues. "We are out of patience when black juries are being systematically barred from service; we are out of patience when blacks are frequently put to death for murdering whites, but whites are not put to death for murdering blacks."

Tom Brackin, president of the Delaware State Troopers Association, said the death penalty law is not applied based on race.

"It would be great if everything in society was done equally, if in every community there was an equal number of each race that the police could arrest and each case was identical, but that is not reality," Brackin said. "The reality is that each case is judged on its merits."

"We believe that the death penalty does save lives," he added. "It is a vital piece of the criminal justice picture here."

Many thought in May that the repeal bill would die after it was blocked in the House Judiciary Committee for the second time in two years. It passed the Senate in April.

Will death penalty ruling affect Delaware?

The bill, however, got a second chance last week after House leadership unexpectedly released it for a full vote on Thursday. Gov. Jack Markell has said he would sign the bill into law if it passed.

Rep. Larry Mitchell, D-Elsmere, chairs the House Judiciary Committee and opposes the bill. Mitchell, a former New Castle County Police officer, released the bill from his committee even though he opposes it, saying the issue deserved a hearing in the full House.

Mitchell said he believes the death penalty is a deterrent to committing murder. He also said he worries that allowing those who commit crimes that currently carry the death penalty, whom he described as "a whole different kind of criminal," would put prison workers, inmates and first-responders in more danger.

Rep. Sean Lynn D-Dover speaks at a press conference to address the racial inequities in Delaware’s criminal justice system at Legislative Hall in the House chamber.

Delaware is one of 32 states with capital punishment. The last execution occurred in April 2012, when 28-year-old Shannon Johnson was killed by lethal injection. Johnson had been convicted in the 2006 shooting death of Cameron Hamlin, 26, an aspiring musician.

Fourteen inmates are currently on Delaware's death row, and over two dozen more capital murder cases are pending trial in Delaware.

In the last year, two death row inmates have had their cases overturned by the Delaware Supreme Court and granted a retrial.

In another case, a Wilmington man who was once the state's longest-serving death row inmate was released from prison while the court weighed whether his videotaped confession should be allowed to be presented during his retrial. Following a Supreme Court ruling granting use of the video, the man turned himself into state police and will await a new trial.

A Delaware Superior Court judge also asked the Delaware Supreme Court on Monday to  consider whether Delaware's death penalty law is constitutional in light of two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings for Kansas and Florida. If the state Supreme Court were to consider the matter, it could put on hold all pending capital murder cases – of which four were scheduled to go to trial in the next 120 days.

These legal and legislative challenges are putting a spotlight on Delaware's death penalty law.

Wilmington Councilwoman Sherry Dorsey Walker said Wednesday she supports the repeal bill. Her cousin was killed in 1986, and at first she thought vengeance was the best option.

But she later turned her "pain into passion."

"If we say we don't want these murders in Wilmington, then why do we have state-sanctioned murder?" she said. "I ask any legislator who is on the fence to take a look at the murder victims' families. We are not angry about what happened anymore. We want to turn our pain into passion."

Brackin said the death penalty can provide closure to families like that of Lindsey Bonistall, a University of Delaware sophomore raped and murdered in May 2005 by James E. Cooke Jr., who is now on death row.

"Would [death penalty opponents] be willing to stand up to talk to the family of Bonistall and tell her family that they believe in their heart of hearts that the just punishment for James Cooke is free meals and health care and a workout facility, then I would suggest they vote for the death penalty," he said. "But we believe that the death penalty does save lives because we know for sure that those who are convicted and given the death penalty will never re-offend."

Mitchell agreed, saying he has talked with the families of murder victims.

"When you hear their stories – and you realize how much they are suffering and how long they suffer for, to me there has to be a punishment that rises to that level," Mitchell said. "I think capital punishment is that punishment."

Staff reporter Matthew Albright contributed to this story.

Contact Jessica Masulli Reyes at (302) 324-2777, jmreyes@delawareonline.com or Twitter @JessicaMasulli.

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