Iowa Lawmaker Wants to Reinstate Death Penalty

Posted at: 12/08/2012 5:01 PM

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A Republican state lawmaker says he plans to introduce a bill to reinstate the death penalty in Iowa, and he's pointing to the deaths of two Iowa girls as his motivation.

State Sen. Kent Sorenson, R-Milo, tells The Des Moines Register (http://dmreg.co/U3enOq) that he intends to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that begins in January.

Sorenson says the discover earlier this week of the bodies of 8-year-old Elizabeth Collins and her cousin, 10-year-old Lyric Cook-Morrissey, have raised the issue of the death penalty to the forefront.

But the chairman of the Iowa Senate's Judiciary Committee, Sen. Gene Fraise, D-Fort Madison, says there is not enough support in the Iowa Legislature to support resurrection of the death penalty.

Iowa repealed capital punishment in 1965.