Delaware Senate sends bill to abolish death penalty to Governor Carney

DOVER, Delaware – The Delaware Senate has sent Governor John Carney a bill that would eliminate the death penalty from state law.

House Bill 70 would remove the sections of the Delaware Code that establish the legal procedures for imposing the death penalty as a punishment for premeditated murder. The maximum sentence would instead be changed to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole, parole release, or sentence reduction.

Senator Kyle Evans Gay, the bill’s lead sponsor in the Senate and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, “Our courts, previous General Assemblies and former governors have all reached the same conclusion that the death penalty is unjust, unconstitutional and ineffective. It is past time we put this flawed and barbaric practice behind us and instead focus our resources and attention on addressing the root causes of crime with measures proven to make Delawareans safer.”

The First State abolished the death penalty in 1958 before the General Assembly voted to reinstate it three years later. The Supreme Court found the state’s death penalty law unconstitutional in 1973, and the General Assembly passed a new death penalty law the following year. A bill to abolish the death penalty passed the Senate for a third time in 2015, but failed in the House, despite support from then-Governor Jack Markell. In 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that the state’s death penalty law again violated the U.S. Constitution because it allows a judge, not a jury, to determine whether prosecutors have proven all the facts necessary to impose a death penalty.

The bill now goes to Governor Carney.