KEEP DEATH PENALTY BUT LIMIT IT?

Here is a way to compromise on the death penalty issue. Keep the death penalty as we know it in New Mexico, but amend it to limit the cases in which it can possibly be imposed. The law requires that the jury find one or more aggravating circumstances before even considering the ultimate penalty. The circumstances appear in New Mexico Statutes Annotated 1978, Section 31-20A-5. They could be amended, as follows:

A. the victim was a peace officer who was acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty when he was murdered; and the murder was committed by the use of an explosive device, poison, or chemical or biological weapon, and resulted in the deaths of five or more persons, including the victim;

B. the murder was committed with intent to kill in the commission of or attempt to commit kidnaping, criminal sexual contact of a minor or criminal sexual penetration; and the victim was over two years of age and under thirteen years of age;

C. the murder was committed with the intent to kill by the defendant while attempting to escape from a penal institution of New Mexico; and the murder was committed by the use of an explosive device, poison, or chemical or biological weapon, and resulted in the deaths of five or more persons, including the victim;

D. while incarcerated in a penal institution in New Mexico, the defendant, with the intent to kill, murdered a person who was at the time incarcerated in or lawfully on the premises of a penal institution in New Mexico. As used in this subsection "penal institution" includes facilities under the jurisdiction of the corrections and criminal rehabilitation department [corrections department] and county and municipal jails; and the murder was committed by the use of an explosive device, poison, or chemical or biological weapon, and resulted in the deaths of five or more persons, including the victim;

E. while incarcerated in a penal institution in New Mexico, the defendant, with the intent to kill, murdered an employee of the corrections and criminal rehabilitation department [corrections department]; and the murder was committed by the use of an explosive device, poison, or chemical or biological weapon, and resulted in the deaths of five or more persons, including the victim;

F. the capital felony was committed for hire; and the murder was committed by the use of an explosive device, poison, or chemical or biological weapon, and resulted in the deaths of five or more persons, including the victim;

G. the capital felony was murder of a witness to a crime or any person likely to become a witness to a crime, for the purpose of preventing report of the crime or testimony in any criminal proceeding, or for retaliation for the victim having testified in any criminal proceeding; and the victim was over two years of age and under thirteen years of age.

The beauty of this proposal is that not many offenders would be executed (if any at all), but the right to execute would be reserved for certain cases. Those would be cases in which the death penalty would be considered just; and in which a mere life sentence with so-called "no possibility of parole" would be considered so inadequate as to undermine our whole criminal justice system in the eyes of most of the general public.