KOMU NBC Channel 8 Columbia
04/01/2008
JEFFERSON CITY - Rep. Bill Deeken of Jefferson City said he wants a two-year study to investigate the death penalty.
During that study, the state would halt all executions. The study would investigate the judicial process and racial bias involved in death penalty decisions.
Dennis Fritz who was featured in John Grisham's novel, The Innocent Man, urged the committee to stop the executions for fear of killing the wrong man.
''I spent twelve, long, hard years in the penitentiary for something I didn't even know about," Fritz said. "My co-defendant spent eleven hard, torturous, tremendously torturous years on death row, in which he came within five days of being executed."
Fritz told lawmakers that a life sentence is more severe than a death sentence.
No one spoke in opposition of the moratorium.
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