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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Momentum Builds Across Party Lines to Abolish Death Penalty

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Friday, March 22, 2019   

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Thirty lawmakers from all sides of the political spectrum are co-sponsoring a bill to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky.

While House Bill 115 languishes in the House Judiciary Committee, supporters say the high number of sponsors indicates views on capital punishment in the state are shifting. Aaron Bentley is chair of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the grandson of a murder victim.

"In Kentucky, we haven't had an execution since 2008, no one has been added to death row since 2010, Kentucky juries are moving away from death, the country is moving away from death, our standards of decency have evolved to the point that we don't think it's needed," says Bentley.

A 2011 report released by the American Bar Association analyzed death-penalty cases in Kentucky and found serious problems related to due process for individuals on death row. The report also found more than 60 percent of death-penalty sentences have been overturned on appeal by Kentucky or federal courts.

Bentley says prosecuting death-penalty cases is expensive. He says it's been estimated that death-penalty prosecutions cost the state roughly $10 million per year, and that cost and flaws in the legal system are pushing many states away from the death penalty.

"The number of states and counties that still actually execute people is much lower than the 30 states that still technically have the death penalty," says Bentley. “Four states largely carry out most executions."

Those opposed to ending capital punishment say perpetrators of heinous crimes should not be exempt from being sentenced to death.

Three people have been executed in Kentucky since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Two of those cases involved inmates who dropped their appeals and agreed to be executed.


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