Rogers/4 Senator Gaughan

S.W.___

A BILL
To incentivize states to abolish the death penalty.
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This act may be cited as the Defend the Taxpayers and Constitution Act of 2017.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS
Congress hereby finds and declares that,
1) 156 people have been found innocent on death row since 1973.
2) For every ten people executed who's been guilty, one innocent person has been killed.
3) In 1972 the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled the Death Penalty to be cruel and
unusual punishment.
4) A case ending with life-in-prison costs the state about 740,000 dollars while one ending with death row
costs the state 1.2 million dollars.
5) We are the only country whose Government officially sponsors the execution of minors.
6) The situations and demographics for which the death penalty is used show significant change over the
years and inconsistency.
7) Evidence shows that the death penalty doesn't deter crime.
8) More people have been excited in the United States in the last fifty years by a judicial system than
anywhere else in the world.
9) Foreign governments refuse to negotiate with or work alongside American law enforcement and
intelligence agencies because we still use the death penalty.
10) State justice and penal systems are responsible for the majority of the death penaltys usage in our
nations history.
11) The death penalty has not been distributed equitably amongst races and sexes.
SECTION 3. STATUTORY LANGUAGE
A) This legislation shall make it practice to withhold funding to minimum security, low risk, and death row
penal operations from the federal government to state governments at the discretion of the administration
and enforcement agency. Funds shall be withheld until such a time state legislatures ban the use of the
death penalty and capital punishment as a response to any crime. The death penalty shall be defined as the
killing of any person, convicted or otherwise. Capital punishment shall be defined as torture or physical
pain as a punishment for any crime by a law enforcement or government agency. in accordance with CIA
definitions of said actions. Minimum security and low risk inmates are to be determined by state penal
systems but may not have committed Class A, B, or Level 1, 2 crimes. Death row is defined as any
criminal who is awaiting an expected death penalty ruling or has received the death penalty verdict.
B) The administering and enforcement agency for this legislation shall be the Department of Justice. No
additional funding should be needed for this action, but should the courts or DOJ determine it necessary,
funding can be pulled from the money previously allocated towards contracting out private prisons at the
federal level.
C) The legislation is inherently a punishment and therefore serves as its own incentivization, though should
the DOJ determine further action or incentivizing be required, fitting, and proper, they may at congressional
approval request an expansion of power. The punishment of this legislation will go into effect on the first of
May in 2017, but anyone currently awaiting death row will have the rulings immediately rescinded and
reconsidered by local judicial authorities. Any pending or new cases upon passage of this legislation and
the first of May are expected to act as if this legislation is already acting in its full form.