Panel to aim for narrow capital punishment bill

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff, 9/23/2003

Governor Mitt Romney plans to create a special commission today to write a narrowly defined death penalty bill that will pass the House, the major stumbling block on Beacon Hill for reinstating executions in Massachusetts.

Romney has scheduled a press conference this morning where he plans to present his choices for the commission, which will try to fulfill Romney's hope to reinstate the death penalty while addressing concerns over the potential execution of innocent people.

In his campaign for governor last year, Romney spoke of a law applying to capital cases based on incontrovertible evidence, although he was not precise on how that could be implemented. He also proposed a narrow application of the death penalty that would be intended only for terrorists, for cases in which law enforcement officers are killed, and for first-degree murders "committed with extreme atrocity."

Romney press secretary Shawn Feddeman confirmed yesterday that the governor would announce the commission, but refused to comment any further.

"The governor said in his campaign last year that he would push to bring back the death penalty, and the creation of the commission is the first step in that direction," Feddeman said.

Meanwhile, there are signs that public support for the death penalty is waning. A Boston Globe-WBZ-TV poll in April showed that 53 percent of those surveyed backed capital punishment, with 41 percent voicing opposition. A poll in 1996 found stronger backing for the issue, with 65 percent supporting "the death penalty for certain crimes," while 26 percent opposed it.

Proposals by former governors William F. Weld and Paul Cellucci to reinstate capital punishment failed each time they came before the House. In November 1997, shortly after the murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge, a death penalty proposal passed on one vote, but failed on a second vote several days later, when Representative John Slattery, Democrat of Peabody, changed his vote.

Two years later, the issue failed to pass the House on an 80-73 vote. A majority of the Senate supports capital punishment.

The margin against the death penalty in the House has widened in the last several years, with the decline in public support and new DNA evidence proving the innocence of death row inmates around the country.

Rick Klein of the Globe staff contributed to this report.