Death penalty bill fails in House

The Massachusetts House yesterday soundly rejected Governor Mitt Romney's plan to reinstate the death penalty, defeating one of his signature 2002 campaign initiatives and affirming the Legislature's growing opposition to capital punishment.

The House vote, 100-53, was widely expected, and it came after Romney declared that the death penalty was no longer among his highest priorities on Beacon Hill.

Still, the decisive outcome underscores how capital punishment has lost support among state lawmakers since it was a hotly contested issue in the 1980s and 1990s. The debate reached a peak in 1997 after the killing of Jeffrey Curley, a 10-year-old Cambridge boy, but then the House rejected a bill reinstating the death penalty on a tie vote. Legislators rejected it in 2001 by a 92-60 vote.

Romney came to office pledging to establish what he called a ''failsafe" death penalty that the state would carry out only after a case met many criteria, including meeting high standards for forensic proof and reviews by an independent panel and the Supreme Judicial Court. The safeguards, however, weren't enough to sway House members, several of whom said they could not envision how the state would ever be sure it was executing only those who committed the crimes.

''All of us are imperfect and all of us have flaws," said state Representative Eugene L. O'Flaherty, a Chelsea Democrat and cochairman of the Judiciary Committee. ''And there never can be certainty, when you subject somebody to capital punishment, that you are executing somebody completely guilty."

Romney's bill, which he filed in the spring, was the product of months of work by an 11-member commission he appointed in 2003. Romney testified on behalf of the measure in July, calling it a ''gold standard" for capital punishment that would apply only to the most heinous cases such as serial killings or the murder of a police officer. Romney and other proponents had said they hoped it would be a national model.

Before yesterday's vote, Romney said that although he still believes that reinstating the death penalty is important, he does not consider it as critical as making strides in healthcare, education, job creation, and auto insurance reform. ''The death penalty is not at the highest level," he told reporters after testifying on auto insurance before a legislative committee.

Massachusetts is one of 14 states that either don't have the death penalty or have seen it declared unconstitutional by a court. The Bay State hasn't carried out an execution since 1947. Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1982 authorizing the death penalty, but the SJC struck it down in 1984. Since then, Republican governors, along with some lawmakers from both parties, have endorsed it, but it has failed to win sufficient backing.

Several polls in recent years have indicated continued support among residents. But there are powerful voices against capital punishment, including several Massachusetts district attorneys and the Roman Catholic Church.

In a debate lasting all afternoon, House members who spoke against Romney's bill cited a litany of cases in Massachusetts and beyond in which murder defendants have been wrongfully convicted.

''Nothing in life is foolproof," said state Representative Daniel E. Bosley, a North Adams Democrat.

There was also a debate about whether life in prison without parole -- the punishment for anyone convicted of first-degree murder in Massachusetts -- was sufficient punishment. Several Republicans argued that it was not.

''What is that life worth when somebody takes it? I believe it's worth that individual's life," said Representative George N. Peterson Jr. of Grafton, assistant House minority leader. ''I do not think we pay justice to that life that was taken by allowing the individual to get up every day to see the sunrise, to see the sunset, even if it is in an 8-by-8 cell."

Martina Jackson, chairwoman of the Massachusetts Anti-Death Penalty Coalition, said the House vote was further evidence that the death penalty has fallen out of favor in the state and in the country.

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.