House passes bill which targets police shootings

The House approved legislation Thursday that makes killing a state or local police officer an aggravating factor that juries and judges would consider in death penalty cases.

Under current law, killing a federal law enforcement officer is already an aggravating factor in death penalty deliberations. The bill's supporters say it's important to apply that standard to the murder of state and local law enforcement and other first responders, too, because it sends a message of accountability.

The vote was 271-143.

Some lawmakers and civil rights groups said the legislation ignores racial biases in the imposition of the death penalty. They also called the legislation duplicative since the killing of any police officer likely meets one of the other 16 aggravating factors that federal juries already consider in death penalty cases.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., acknowledged the scenarios the bill would apply to "are probably limited." Still, he said it would be important in some acts of terrorism where a state or local officer is killed, or if an officer serving on federal task force were killed. He said it would also cover volunteer first responders.

"This legislation sends a simple message. The stalking and killing of a law enforcement officer will not be tolerated," Goodlatte said.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said he was troubled and saddened by recent attacks on law enforcement officers, but he believed the bill was "counterproductive to ensuring public safety and only serves to exacerbate concerns with the unfair and unjust death penalty."

Conyers said any bill dealing with capital punishment should also address concerns about racial disparities, such as a lack of qualified counsel and resources for those facing the death penalty.

yeah. sometimes i wonder what all those passing of bill put our citizens through.
the government should be better than this.

what if the police officer happens to be the bad guy ???????????

it does happen on occasion

eric even sings a song about it

Sounds like yet another unnecessary new law designed to garner votes from people who don't realize that it's already illegal to kill police. Or that somehow, if such a law is passed, that all those people who are out there killing now, will stop and say "oh my, I had no idea it was ILLEGAL to do this! I'll stop misbehaving right away!"

This includes first responders and firemen now.

Paul McCartney sang a song about it...play it backwards.

Problem with that is not all states have the Death Penalty.. and those that do have it, has been doing that for years no matter who you are...

Those that don't then it can not be used... and they just sit in there..

I believe it is a good law ...
even though their are some bad cops ...

and now with first responders and fireman men and women ...
they should never be in the line of fire but some are ...
so their just telling the laws ...now for them if hurt or killed ...
they always had the law for officers but good now on the others ...
just trying to save lives ...

Again, it has ALWAYS been against the law to attack firemen and first responders, as it has always been against the law to kill civilians. Unless the new law arranges for additional resources being committed to dealing with such crimes, it's still just meaningless window dressing for political campaigns.

I have seen lots of much ballyhooed new laws passed over the years like this, right after something becomes a hot political topic, and except for very rare cases, they've been functionally meaningless.

Not sure what the problem is but not sure why special laws either. A crime is a crime. But on the flip side, there are special hate crimes now, so why not for cops putting their lives on the line?

The Hate Crime thing is a good comparison. Some hate crime laws were genuine new legislation, changing what would have been simple trespassing or assault, to what it actually was, which was an all out attack on an entire person's life. In the same way, as I was trying to say before, some new laws that target those who attack representatives of our authorities are actually recognizing that there's more involved than just the immediate crime, while other laws are just political window dressing.

It's a bit like changing a crime from being an act of domestic violence, and declaring it an act of terrorism. Escalating it to a higher level, automatically brings additional resources, such as the FBI into play. And provided Congress also votes the supporting FUNDING to make it POSSIBLE to perform the promised additional prevention or prosecution, it can be a move towards a safer and better world. But if it's just another high profile media op for the politicians, it's worse than no good, because it uses up legal resources which are needed to go after real crimes.

This is probably a response and police and firemen who were targets of an ambush. Maybe they saw a need to protect them from them as much as possible.

Oh, yes, I support that idea of course. I've just seen way too many posturing politicians add law after law, without ever doing the supporting work required to make the new law actually functional. Color me suspicious.

Waaaaay back when I was snapping wippers ever chance I could (the 1970's) we ALSO had problems with first responders being targeted, in those days for political reasons mostly, by people who imagined they were starting a new American Revolution. Lots of new laws were passed back then to "protect" the first responders, just like these. They were never voted out of existence. So why pass new ones, to do exactly the same thing?

Obviously, because they want to give the APPEARANCE that they are standing up for our heroic, woefully underpaid protective servicers, without actually spending dime one to actually do so.

Want to ACTUALLY do something to protect those people? Double the budget for actual teams, in order to provide support for the support, and triple the budget for training. And of course, double or triple the budget to pay them, so that you can get the best people.

You know, use the logic that the rich folks keep pushing at us for why they need to pay top corporate officers twenty times what everyone else gets.