NCJ Number
178442
Journal
Harvard Journal on Legislation Volume: 36 Issue: 2 Dated: Summer 1999 Pages: 479-529
Date Published
1999
Length
51 pages
Annotation
This essay reviews the historical context of the debate about capital punishment in Massachusetts, examines Federal and State constitutional restraints on legislation related to capital punishment, analyzes recent legislation proposed to restore capital punishment; the essay is followed by transcript of a symposium held on April 12, 1999.
Abstract
Public opinion polls reveal that Massachusetts citizens generally support the death penalty. However, Massachusetts has not executed anyone since 1947, and the legislature has been unable to restore the death penalty since the United States Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck down the State's death penalty law as unconstitutional in 1970. The United States Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia is perhaps the most important Supreme Court decision regarding the death penalty. Limits imposed on death penalty legislation by Massachusetts courts are less developed, in part because of the State's de facto lack of a death penalty since 1947. The governor submitted House Bill 3963 to the legislature in February 1999 in an effort to restore the death penalty. The bill eventually failed by a vote of 80 to 73. However, it offers insight into the process of drafting a law on an issue as constitutionally sensitive and politically volatile as capital punishment. A large number of the bill's major provisions can be traced directly to specific State or Federal judicial concerns and previous legislative attempts to enact capital punishment. The debate over the death penalty in Massachusetts will continue. The April 1999 symposium brought together State legislators, practitioners, and activists on both sides of the debate about capital punishment. Footnotes