Boner

Wyoming Senate rejects bill to repeal death penalty

The Wyoming state Senate on Thursday voted down a bill that would have repealed the death penalty.

The GOP-led body opposed the bill in a 12-18 vote, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.

The bill, which was introduced by Republican state Sen. Brian Boner, passed safely in the House, and was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Boner told the Star-Tribune that the outcome of the vote was not what he anticipated “from talking with people before.”

“There’s a lot of different factors and, at the end of the day, everyone has to make their best determination based on the information they have,” he said.

Supporters of the move to repeal the death penalty in Wyoming said it would save the state money and be a humane step in reforming criminal justice.

Maintaining the death penalty costs the state about $1 million per year, according to the paper. And a death row inmate costs the state’s Department of Corrections about 30 percent more to incarcerate than a general population prisoner.

Boner said much of the opposition to the bill came from lawmakers with “a deep conviction that someone can do something so heinous that they have to die.”

“There’s no amount of reason or facts that you can give them that will change that. I also think there’s a generational gap, that folks who were from a time where the death penalty were used more often are more accustomed to it,” said Boner, who is 34.” It might have worked 30, 40 or 50 years ago, but that’s just not the case anymore.”

Wyoming has not executed a prisoner since 1992, and not sentenced anyone to death since 2004. It is one of several red states where legislative pushes to end capital punishment have been gaining traction.