Bipartisan Action : Senate Votes Death Penalty in Drug Killing

The Senate on Friday approved an election-year bill that would allow the death penalty for drug dealers convicted of murder, accepting arguments that “society has a right to say we are outraged.”

The measure passed on a 65-29 vote, attracting a majority of lawmakers from both parties: 27 Democrats and 38 Republicans.

It now goes to the House, where it will be handled by a Judiciary Committee that has been hostile to capital punishment legislation in the past.

Urged as Deterrent

The bill was sponsored by Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who argued that the specter of the death penalty would deter drug dealers from embarking on killing sprees that he said have become far too common. During three days of debate, D’Amato repeatedly read from news accounts of drug-related violence.

“I believe society has a right to say we are outraged at certain acts, and the death penalty is the appropriate penalty in these cases,” he said Friday.

Opponents countered that the threat of capital punishment would do nothing to reduce killings, was immoral and was little more than politically motivated pandering to the public’s frustrations with illegal drugs.

Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R-Conn.) told his colleagues that “the only bullets we can manufacture” are higher taxes to pay for more drug education and law enforcement.

“That’s why this bill is mischievous,” Weicker said. “It doesn’t do anything for the war on drugs.”

The legislation allows the death penalty to be imposed on people who are convicted in federal courts of running a drug ring and are then separately found guilty of killing law enforcement officers or private citizens. In addition, any person who commits a felony violation of federal drug laws who then kills an officer could face capital punishment.

Senators opposing the bill lost several attempts to weaken it.

On Thursday, they voted 65 to 31 against an amendment offered by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) that would have imposed a penalty of life imprisonment without parole, instead of the death penalty, for people convicted under the bill.

Rejected Simon Provision

On Friday, they rejected in a 66-28 vote a provision by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) that would have limited the bill’s capital punishment provisions to drug dealers who are convicted of killing law enforcement officers.

On a voice vote, they accepted an amendment sponsored by Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) allowing prison employees to refuse to participate in executions.

But they rejected language offered by Hatfield that would have required executions to be carried out in public and would have allowed television broadcasts of the executions.

“It’s a repulsive amendment to a repulsive proposal,” Hatfield said of his measure.

D’Amato told reporters he believed the legislation would apply to “hundreds and hundreds of potential cases.”

57 Officers Killed

The senator’s office, citing FBI statistics, said 57 law enforcement officers were killed between 1977 and 1986 pursuing suspects involved in drug cases. Twenty-three of those officers died in 1986 alone.

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III said he was “very pleased” that the Senate approved the bill, saying it “clearly signifies that this type of conduct will not be tolerated by a civilized society.”

“Too often the killings are not of other drug dealers, but rather are innocent passers-by, children on schoolyards or law enforcement officers,” Meese said.

Three years ago, federal legislation was enacted establishing the death penalty for military personnel convicted of espionage during peacetime. Under federal law, the death penalty can also be imposed for airplane hijacking. No one has yet been executed under the laws.

Thirty-seven states have death penalty laws. Since 1976, when the Supreme Court resumed permitting executions after a four-year period, 99 people--all convicted murderers--have been put to death in the United States.