The Senate Judiciary Committee considered legislation Monday night to expedite the appeals process for defendants sentenced to death who had also kidnapped their victims.
Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla, the bill's sponsor, said years ago a friend of his and her two children were killed and placed into a pond on their property, and the two men convicted of the crime were "not suffering much."
"I knew this young lady from the time she was a child," he said. "So this has weighed heavily on my mind and hopefully we can do something to help some of these victims and maybe, maybe cause it to be a deterrent."
The legislation was introduced in light of the abduction and killing of Springfield 10-year-old girl Hailey Owens in February. Senators denounced the horrific crime on the floor of the Senate and said the killings of kidnapped children were especially egregious.
The expedited appeals process included in the bill would require these abduction and murder cases be prioritized on court dockets, mandate the supreme court set an execution date within ten days of appeals being exhausted and limit the time attorneys had to file appeals and briefs and the circumstances that extensions could be granted.
Brown indicated he was open to making changes to the bill and said he was in discussions with representatives of the state's prosecuting attorneys.
Executive Director of the Missouri Office of Prosecution Services Jason Lamb told the committee he was working with Brown on the legislation and was looking for a way to prioritize all cases with child victims in trial dockets.
"If this were looked at as a situation where in any case where there is a child victim, whether we are talking about child molestation case, child abuse cases ... looking at a similarly accelerated but still constitutionally protected appeals process," Lamb said.
The bill solicited little discussion from the committee members, but Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, called attention to the horrific details of the crimes of death row inmates and reiterated a point he has previously made on the Senate floor and in interviews.
"If we are going to get into this discussion about the death penalty, we are going to have the level of detail that judges and juries and prosecutors ... have to get into in excruciating details," he said. "When a jury makes that decision, it makes that decision based on those facts not some theoretical concept of the death penalty."
Donna Roesle of Kansas City told the committee she had gathered more than 20,000 signatures on a petition calling for the expedited execution of defendants convicted of killing abducted minor children. She said the slaying of Hailey Owens had spurred her to act.
"After (Hailey) was abducted and killed, I was upset..." she said. "And I found out there were over 22,000 people who felt the same way I do."
She said immediately after a person was found guilty of a child abduction and murder, he should be "executed and or castrated."
Rep. Mike Kelley, R-Lamar, has filed a bill in the House that also attempts to expedite the death penalty process by requiring the state supreme court complete its mandatory review of all death sentences within thirty days and set an execution date of within 60 days of the completion of its review.
There are 41 inmates on Missouri's death row, but a small number of them had abducted and murdered minor victims.