Could Iowa soon join the list of states in the U.S. that has the death penalty? Some Iowa lawmakers would like to see it that way. Twenty Senate Republicans have signed on to a bill that would reinstate the death penalty in the state. No one has been executed in Iowa in more than 50 years.

A Senate subcommittee approved the bill yesterday with only Republican support. The bill would make it a capital offense to kidnap, rape, and murder a minor. A similar bill failed last year and this bill's fate appears to look very similar.

Attorney General Tom Miller said that the death penalty wouldn't make Iowa any safer and likely can't be administered fairly. Republican Senator Jake Chapman says that some crimes are so heinous that only the death penalty offers proper justice.

Currently, the state of Iowa requires life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes including first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, and certain sexual crimes. Iowa abolished the death penalty in 1965.

 

[via CBS2]

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