SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A Utah lawmaker who led the push to bring back the firing squad said he plans to propose a mandatory death penalty for anyone who targets and kills a police officer.
Clearfield Republican Rep. Paul Ray said he’s drafting legislation that would require prosecutors to seek capital punishment if an officer dies in a targeted attack, the Deseret News reported Wednesday (https://bit.ly/2f1TFn3).
The proposal is designed to prevent attacks on officers, and Ray said his resolve hardened with the news of two police officers fatally shot in Iowa.
“I want an ultimate penalty. If you target, you kill a police officer, you need to pay with your own life,” he said.
The measure would also impose heftier penalties on people convicted of targeting an officer in a non-fatal assault. It would be aimed at people who specifically go after police rather than those injure or kill officers in the course of a crime, Ray said, though he acknowledged he’s still working out the legal definition of targeting an officer.
Ray has previously proposed legislation that would allow the state to execute criminals convicted of child sex trafficking, though those bills failed.
He also proposed bringing back use of the firing squad as a backup execution method if lethal drugs aren’t available, which was signed into law last year.
Killing a police officer is already a death-penalty eligible crime in Utah, but mandating that prosecutors pursue it could be problematic, said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.
If it passed, a case would go to trial rather than prosecutors pursuing a plea deal even if evidence is lacking.
“Would we want to force a trial even if the case starts to deteriorate and risk losing the case?” Gill said.
Such a measure could also disregard the wishes of a victim’s family who may want to avoid the often decades-long capital appeals process, Gill said.
Under Ray’s plan, a jury would still decide whether to impose the death penalty if a defendant is found guilty, as in all death penalty cases in Utah.
Gill said he’d support heftier penalties for attacks on officers short of the death penalty aspect.
University of Utah law professor and a former federal judge Paul Cassell echoed those sentiments and cited the $1.6 million cost of a death penalty case over a life-without-parole case, as estimated by legislative analysts.
“Sadly, many of the people who are attacking law enforcement officers are not likely to be deterred by changes in criminal penalty,” Cassell said.
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Information from: Deseret News, https://www.deseretnews.com
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