The House Appropriations Committee has approved a bill that would streamline the post-conviction appeals process for incarcerated individuals. The measure is part of Attorney General Liz Murrill’s legislative package. Murrill says the legislation is designed to speed up the appeals process in capital murder cases. She says they can still file numerous appeals, but they can’t wait three to four years between appeals.
“This bill puts some discipline into the system and ensures that it will move more quickly. And these are death penalty cases that are predominantly the ones that have exploited weaknesses in this system and the lack of discipline in this system,” Murrill explained.
The legislation is making its way through the process at the same time that death row inmate, Larry Roy, also known as the Cheneyville slasher, is still fighting against an execution date and he’s been on death row since 1997. Murrill says this is torture for the family members of the three people Roy killed.
“It is impossible for any of us, I think, to look at these people and listen to these people and hear them and walk this walk with them and not promise them that we’re going to fix it,” Murrill said.
The bill will cost the state an additional $4 million dollars. The Office of the State Public Defender’s office says it needs the additional dollars, because if the post-conviction appeals process was sped up, they will need more lawyers to defend the additional cases. Attorney Robert Morris represents death row inmates and expressed his concerns about the legislation.
“Our office is staffed to handle about 12 cases at a time. There’s 30, 40 cases pending that would all be activated at once by this bill,” Morris said.
The bill goes to the House floor for debate.
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