Pennsylvania lawmaker pushes to abolish death penalty

(WHTM)– A Midstate lawmaker is pushing to abolish Pennsylvania’s death penalty with a newly proposed bill.

State Representative Russ Diamond (R-Lebanon), one of the more conservative Republicans in the legislature, introduced House Bill 888, which would take the death penalty off the table in Pennsylvania.

Capital punishment has been paused in Pennsylvania after both Governors Wolf and Shapiro put a moratorium on it. While no one is being executed right now, 94 inmates in Pennsylvania have been sentenced to death or are on death row.

Diamond’s bill would change that, replacing the death penalty with life without parole.

“I’m very pro-life, and I believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. Second, because I’m a Christian, and I believe of the promise of the cross, and I believe that redemption is available to everybody, no matter how horrible the sins were. And I don’t think we as human beings have any authority to determine when that redemption can no longer be God. That that’s up to God,” Diamond said.

Diamond added that death penalty appeals are expensive and that there are cases of the wrong person being sentenced to death.

The bill has garnered bipartisan support. Democrats who want justice reform and think the death penalty is cruel will likely sign on to a Russ Diamond bill, which doesn’t happen often.