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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Death Penalty Foe Bends Ears in Kentucky

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Monday, March 30, 2009   

Frankfort, KY – Innocence and money. Those are the two points for a former death row inmate who has been talking to legislators around the country as they debate proposals to scrap the death penalty in favor of life in prison without parole for capital crimes. New Mexico is the latest to abolish the death penalty, and legal experts have asked Kentucky's Governor Steve Beshear for a moratorium on executions, because the budget crisis means those accused can't obtain adequate public defender counsel.

Randy Steidl from Illinois was sentenced to death in 1986 for a double murder, even though, he says, he had proof he was not at the scene of the crime. He says it's amazing how quickly an innocent person can wind up sentenced to death when legal expertise is not available.

"I went from my home to death row in 97 days – scratching my head trying to figure out how did this happen? It took me 17 years plus to get out."

Steidl says New Mexico abolished its death penalty because of concerns about innocent people being put to death, and because of the cost of capital punishment cases. The cost factor carries weight in Kentucky as the economy erodes; Steidl's death row case in Illinois cost that state more than three million dollars.

"To me, that money could be better spent for the family of murder victims. Why does it have to be spent as a stimulus package for special prosecutors, special defense attorneys?"

The Governor has not yet responded to the moratorium request. Opponents of the request say the state needs to keep the death penalty in effect as a deterrent to violent crime.



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