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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers are set to begin a new effort to try and eliminate future death penalty cases during the 2022 legislative session, which starts Tuesday.
If passed, HB147 would prohibit the state from seeking capital punishment in aggravated murder cases starting after May 4. However, the state would be able to seek the death penalty if prosecutors file their intent to do so before the May deadline, according to the bill.
The bill would also give prosecutors another option for capital cases, as it would add the possible sentence of 45 years to life in prison. As of now, the only sentencing options for aggravated murder convictions aside from the death penalty are sentences of life without the possibility of parole or 25 years to life in prison.
The sponsor of the bill, Rep. V. Lowry Snow, R-St. George, and the floor sponsor, Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, told the KSL and Deseret News editorial boards last year of their plans to eliminate future death penalty cases in Utah. They cited the death penalty's heavy price tag and the toll it takes on victims' families as reasons for the bill.
Snow pointed to one of his constituents in southern Utah — Sharon Wright Weeks, the sister and aunt of Brenda Lafferty and infant Erica. Brenda and Erica Lafferty were killed in their American Fork home on July 24, 1984, by Ron and Dan Lafferty after the pair of brothers believed God was compelling them to kill the mother and daughter. Ron Lafferty was ultimately sentenced to death, but he died in 2019 due to natural causes after spending 34 years on death row.
Snow said Weeks' family was retraumatized with every appeal, of which there are many in nearly every death penalty case.
Though lawmakers have tried and failed to repeal the death penalty in Utah — the last effort didn't advance out of the House in 2018 — the latest push may be different.
According to an October poll by the Deseret News and Hinckley Institute of Politics, a slight majority of Utahns — 51% — were in favor of keeping the death penalty as an option. That number is a noticeable decrease from a similar Deseret News-KSL survey from 2010 that showed 79% of Utahns were strongly in favor or somewhat in favor of the death penalty.
In addition to public opinion, there's also the factor of the cost to taxpayers. A 2018 study from the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice showed that Utah would likely be no different than other states around the country that have spent more money handling death penalty cases — and the ensuing legal battles — than cases with sentences of life in prison without parole.
The last time the state did a comprehensive fiscal analysis of death penalty costs was 2012, and the study estimated that a death penalty case costs $1.6 million more than a life sentence without parole.
More recently, Utah County commissioners voiced their stance against the death penalty last fall, shortly after Utah County Attorney David Leavitt announced he would no longer seek the death penalty for any future cases he oversees.
The last man executed in Utah was Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was executed by firing squad on June 18, 2010, at the Utah State Prison in Draper. Currently there are seven men on Utah's death row.
