GRAND RAPIDS, MI “Michigan needs the death penalty.”
This is among the most typical of comments whenever the crime of murder leads to what, for many, is the unsatisfying conclusion of Michigan’s ultimate punishment: life in prison without the possibility of parole.
But for 165 years, capital punishment has not been an option for state juries. This is despite some unsuccessful efforts to make it so that have been stopped by voters or stalled out in legislatures, whether they be dominated by Republicans or Democrats.
“Support for capital punishment is a mile wide, but only an inch deep,” said former state Sen. William VanRegenmorter, R-Hudsonville, after a try to get the death penalty enacted in Michigan sputtered out in the 1980s.
As far back as Michigan’s first settling as a territory in 1805, the use of the death penalty was sparse. By most tallies, less than a half dozen people, many of whom were American Indians, were sentenced to capital punishment.
Source: mlive.com, Barton Deiters, April 17, 2012
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