|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Steele: Death Penalty, Mentally Ill to be Focus of State Panel
(STATEHOUSE) – A state panel created to study the imposition of the death penalty on the mentally ill will convene for the first time on Friday. The Bowser Commission will meet at 1 p.m. in room 431 of the Statehouse. Sen. Brent Steele (R-Bedford) serves on the commission.
“Legislators have to keep proper perspective and realize in this day of age every social malady is labeled as a mental illness and some are legitimate and some obviously are not,” Steele said.
Sen. Steele co-authored a resolution to create The Bowser Commission, which is named after the late Sen. Anita Bowser, a Democrat from Michigan City and staunch opponent of the death penalty. She passed away in March after a battle with breast cancer. She authored legislation to ban the death penalty for those deemed mentally ill at the time a crime was committed. It was never enacted into law.
-30-
| 