Bill to end death penalty in Nevada introduced

CARSON CITY — Capital punishment may no longer be a part of Nevada’s criminal justice system.

Assembly Bill 27, which would abolish the death penalty, was introduced Friday in the Nevada Assembly. The penalty is currently allowed in Nevada as a punishment in cases involving first-degree murder.

The law would apply retroactively to inmates on death row, and commute their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Eighty-one Nevada inmates were on death row in January, according to a Nevada Department of Corrections report.

State officials have been unable to get responses in recent months from pharmaceutical companies for drugs needed for lethal injections after requesting proposals.

Nevada’s last execution, by lethal injection, was in 2006, when Daryl Mack was put to death for the 1988 rape and murder of a Reno woman, Betty Jane May.

Nevada has executed 12 inmates since capital punishment was reinstated by the Legislature in 1977.

The bill is sponsored by Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, and Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas. Ohrenschall is chairman of the Assembly Corrections, Probation and Parole Committee; Segerblom is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-0661. Follow @BenBotkin1 on Twitter.