Bill to reinstate death penalty begins capitol climb

January 25, 2011

A bill to ask voters to decide on whether the state should reinstate the death penalty is starting to make its way through the legislative process. On Monday, Rep. Dennis Kintigh ® Roswell, a former FBI agent and former chief of police introduced a joint resolution that would take the question of capitol punishment to voters in the form of a constitutional amendment. In order to put the amendment on a ballot, both the House of Representatives and the State Senate would have to vote in a super majority in favor of the resolution. If that happens, state and national polling seem to indicate that the death penalty would have a very good chance of being reinstated. But garnering a two-thirds vote will be extremely difficult with an issue as evenly divided as capital punishment. Back in 2008, the repeal of the death penalty made it through the state senate by only six votes and, unlike the House of Representatives where Republicans picked up several seats in the last election, senate membership remains unchanged. Governor Susana Martinez, a former prosecutor, has spoken in favor of putting certain criminals to death, most recently in her State of the State address.