Thread by @MichelleRindels

Assembly Judiciary Committee is hearing #AB395, which abolishes the death penalty in Nevada, converts all existing death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Still an open question whether this has sufficient support to pass.

Bill presenter @SteveYeagerNV urges #nvleg to put aside their personal feelings about the death penalty and see this as a policy question. He thinks testimony will demonstrate it is costly, ineffective, retraumatizes family, convicts the innocent and has a regional bias.

@SteveYeagerNV Tom Viloria, a former prosecutor in Northern Nevada, says he used to support the death penalty. But he observed that often it's just one prosecutor who knows the full facts of the case, and choice to pursue death penalty could be tainted by desire to be "hard-nosed bulldog"

@SteveYeagerNV Viloria says the death penalty is barbaric, and we don't use eye-for-an-eye in other parts of the justice system, replicating the same crime the defendant committed against them.

@SteveYeagerNV Public defender Scott Coffee said he believes that the 62 pending capital cases in Clark Co. is highest rate per capita in U.S.

Notes that since the 70s, only 12 people were executed in NV; 11 were "volunteers."

"We don't execute anybody, even when a death sentence is imposed."

@SteveYeagerNV Others supporting bill: Cynthia Portaro, whose son was killed 10 years ago and says death penalty proceedings are too much for a family to bear.

Also, Heather Snedeker, whose father was executed by state of Texas 22 years ago, when she was 8.

@SteveYeagerNV .@Wheeler4Nevada asks why lethal injection is considered cruel and unusual punishment but euthanasia for terminally ill patients is not.

Answer from Coffee is more about death penalty case law and not really about the ethical / philosophical question there.

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada On smaller counties not having means to pursue death penalty, @ProfTDParry says system "views blackness automatically as criminality." He thinks it's no coincidence that urban area "populated more heavily by African American population, probably does have the money to prosecute."

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry Jodi Hocking of Return Strong, group for families of incarcerated people:

"If we believe that [murder is not] admissible in our society, then it has to be wrong for everyone, not just for individuals but for governments as well."

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry Tyler Ingram, Elko County DA, opposing bill and defending prosecutors:

"We are not rogue ... we aren't self righteous vigilantes who abuse the legal process. We are kind ... We are not hard nosed, we are not bulldogs. We are advocates."

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry Clark County DA Steve Wolfson: "If the appropriate punishment for a single murder is life without parole, how do you punish a person who commits multiple murders? Should we punish someone who kills one person, the same as someone who kills two, 10, or 60?

I say no."

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry Washoe County DA Chris Hicks going into detail about rape / murder cases that have been subject to death penalty, including saying Brianna Denison's "lifeless naked body was discarded by Biela like a piece of trash."

Says death penalty should remain, but be "fixed."

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry Wolfson: "We've filed notice [to seek death penalty] perhaps 50, 60, 70, 80 times in the nine years [I've been DA]. I believe we probably have filed notices when the [victims'] families, wish not to, but the family input is just that--it's input. It doesn't control our decision."

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry "If someone cannot consider the death penalty under any circumstances, they are not qualified to sit on a capital jury ... If someone believes that the death penalty is the appropriate punishment in every case of first degree murder ... they're not qualified to sit on the jury."

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry Here's a fascinating exhibit on all the people sentenced to death in Nevada since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. There have been 161 cases; 12 led to executions, and many have had death sentence permanently waived.

leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/…

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry Nancy Hart of @nvcadp says lawmakers don't necessarily need to change their mind on whether death is appropriate for certain murderers. They just need to acknowledge that the penalty as applied and administered in Nevada is too broken to be fixed.

@SteveYeagerNV @Wheeler4Nevada @ProfTDParry @nvcadp Yeager closes #AB395 death penalty abolition hearing on this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.:

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars."