A bipartisan group of Illinois legislators has introduced a bill that would reinstate the death penalty for convicted mass murderers and killers of first responders.
Southern Illinois Democratic State Rep. Jerry Costello helped craft the bill. He says the death penalty is the ultimate crime deterrent.
"There's never been somebody who's committed such a violent, heinous act as what we're talking about here today, who was sentenced to death, whoever committed another murder. While there have been people, who were sentenced to life, who committed murders, attacked guards and killed other inmates."
Costello says he supports the re-opening of the supermax prison in Tamms that housed inmates defined by prison leadership as the most disruptive and dangerous. It's also where Illinois executed prisoners prior to the state abolishing the death penalty in 2011. The Tamms facility closed in 2013.
The death penalty legislation does not include gun control measures proposed by Gov. Bruce Rauner when he used his amendatory veto authority on gun legislation earlier this month. They contend Rauner's amendatory veto places "overreaching restrictions on law-abiding gun owners."
House republican leader Jim Durkin sponsors Rauner's proposal.
