Law professor helps to revise death penalty on Massachusetts state panel

An IU law professor has been selected co-chairman of a Massachusetts panel that could drastically alter the use of the death penalty in the United States. \nJoseph Hoffmann, the Harry Pratter IU professor of law, is part of an 11-member council selected by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to develop a bill that would re-institute capital punishment in the state. \nCurrently Massachusetts is one of 12 states without the death penalty and has not performed a state execution since 1947.\nGov. Romney assembled the committee with the expectation the proposed bill will eliminate mistakes that have plagued other states' capital punishment convictions.\n"This is an opportunity to write a kind of death penalty legislation that will avoid the mistakes of the past," Hoffman said.\nHoffmann has already begun working on the bill and expects progress to come quickly.\n"We're supposed to have our research done by 2004," Hoffmann said.\nBecause there is no guarantee the bill will pass, the proposed legislation will have to meet certain standards.\n"(The governor) is looking for a very carefully crafted, narrow bill," Hoffmann said.\nThe bill's progress should receive much attention throughout the nation. Should it pass, the bill could serve as precedent for the entire country.\n"I really am looking for a standard of certainty," Gov. Romney said in a Sept. 23 article in The New York Times. "That's why I've asked this panel of experts to determine if a legal and forensic standard can be crafted to assure us that only the guilty will suffer the death penalty. I believe it can be."\nMassachusetts lieutenant governor Kerry Murphy Healey said people are not satisfied with the quality of currently death-penalty legislation. \n"Even some proponents of the death penalty are concerned about proposing legislation, or using existing legislation," Healey said in the article.\nHoffmann said other states will also use the proposed bill, regardless of its acceptance, as a means for comparison to their existing statues.\n"I look for other states to pay attention to whether or not it passes," he said.\nHoffmann, who says he is "not morally opposed to capital punishment," has previous experience authoring death penalty legislation. He drafted legislation in Illinois which intends to transform the state's famously flawed capital punishment system into a national model. The bill was passed by the Illinois legislature in late May.\nHoffmann said the circumstances in Massachusetts are entirely different than in Illinois.\n"The political climate in Illinois was more receptive to change than states typically are," Hoffmann said.\n-- Contact staff writer Matt Lahr at mjlahr@indiana.edu.