PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - South Dakota should keep the death penalty, a deeply split legislative panel decided Friday after hearing emotional testimony on either side of the issue from families whose loved ones were killed.
The House State Affairs Committee voted 7-6 to reject a measure that would have banned the death penalty in future cases. The measure sought to leave in place the death sentences of the three convicted murderers on South Dakota’s death row, but prosecutors said the bill’s language might have allowed those three to avoid execution.
Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux Falls and the bill’s main sponsor, said he previously supported the death penalty but changed his mind after contemplating how that meshed with his opposition to abortion and his belief that God can redeem even those who commit horrible crimes.
“If human life is sacred, it is always sacred,” said Hickey, who is also a pastor.
The three men on South Dakota’s death row are: Charles Russell Rhines, convicted of the 1992 slaying of Donnivan Schaeffer, 22, during the burglary of a Rapid City doughnut shop; Briley Piper, convicted of the 2000 killing of Chester Allan Poage, 19, near Spearfish; and Rodney Berget, an inmate convicted of the 2011 killing of Sioux Falls prison guard Ronald Johnson during a botched escape attempt.
Johnson’s widow, Lynette Johnson, cried Friday as she told the committee that Berget and Eric Robert, who has already been executed for the crime, ripped her family’s life apart when they killed her husband. She said such inmates must be executed because they could kill other staff or inmates if they remain in prison on life sentences.
“I’mbegging,” Lynette Johnson told the committee. “Keep the death penalty. Keep the death penalty there for the safety of those officers.”
Attorney General Marty Jackley said 32 states and the federal government allow the death penalty. South Dakota rarely imposes the death penalty, he said.
“There are simply those cases so vile, those individuals that are so dangerous, that in order to protect innocent life, you have no choice but to take life,” Jackley said.
Some convicts are likely to kill again in prison if they get life sentences, the attorney general said.
Hickey said he does not believe the death penalty deters others from committing crimes, improves public safety or saves money in the prison and court systems. A life sentence without parole should keep people locked up in small cells, he said.
“Taking away a person’s life but not their breath puts the excruciating back in the maximum life sentence,” Hickey said.
Ed and Peggy Schaeffer said the death penalty is appropriate justice for some murderers, including the man who killed their son.
“These felons made their choice,” Peggy Schaeffer said. “Now they should have to face the consequences.”
But Leonard Eberle of Rapid City, whose son was abducted and killed three decades ago, said he initially wanted his son’s killer executed but eventually changed his mind. He said such killers should just be locked up for life.
“Killing is not the answer,” Eberle said.
Former South Dakota attorneys general, Mark Meierhenry and Roger Tellinghuisen, said they used to support the death penalty but have changed their minds. Tellinghuisen said it often leads jurors, lawyers and others into therapy after the stress of a death penalty case. Meierhenry said the death penalty is applied unevenly because it is sought in some cases only because a politically ambitious prosecutor wants attention.
Jackley said prosecutors, defense lawyers, trial judges, juries and appeals courts make sure the death penalty is used appropriately.
Jackley said the bill sought to keep in place any death sentence imposed before July 1 this year, but that language might let the three on death row avoid execution. Those inmates are still pursuing appeals, and their lawyers could argue a death sentence is not imposed until a judge finally signs a death warrant, he said.
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