Capital punishment remains a contentious topic for lawmakers across America. This week, that debate returns to the state Senate Judiciary Committee.
Senate Bill 109, submitted by Sioux Falls Democratic Sen. Reynold Nesiba, would provisionally repeal capital punishment in South Dakota.
Four inmates have been put to death via lethal injection in South Dakota since 2012.
In Nesiba’s words, the death penalty is “deeply problematic.”
“Capital punishment, I don’t believe, serves as an effective deterrent against crime," Nesiba said. "It’s hugely expensive, it’s difficult for the people who have to impose it, so I just think it’s unnecessary. I think it would save the state money to put people in prison for life.”
The often decades-long appeals process can represent a major prosecution cost. A report from the US Department of Justice estimates an execution could cost as much as six times keeping that inmate incarcerated for life, and that’s before mentioning the philosophical and humanitarian considerations of putting an inmate to death.
The death penalty isn’t without supporters though. That includes one key voice - Attorney General Marty Jackley.
“I have supported the death penalty on a very sparing basis," Jackley said. "Much like what the legislature said, it has to be a premeditated murder, it has to have one of a very narrow set of factors, it has to have the judges approval, it has to have the prosecutors approval, and most importantly the jury’s approval.”
Ultimately, Jackley, who has worked on death penalty cases from prosecution and defense, still believes in the utility of capital punishment.
“If we didn’t have that tool or resource available, number one, I think we would have more prison deaths, and number two I strongly believe it’s a deterrent that protects our law enforcement officers," Jackley said. "I would say if you looked at the four sparing times I have exercised as attorney general the death penalty, all four of them worked and have served as a deterrent.”
South Dakota currently houses a lone death row inmate at the State Penitentiary, Briley Piper, in connection to the 2000 murder of Chester Poage in Spearfish. No inmates have been executed in the state since late 2019.
SB 109 will be heard Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.