Lynn Greer is Grandstanding Again

A recent editorial in a state publication called out legislators who offer up feel-good legislation while never addressing real problems in Alabama. Certainly Lynn Greer is one of those, or at least his current bill is. Greer attempted to submit this bill on capital punishment last year, but it never made it out of the judiciary committee. There was a reason for this. Most of what Greer is proposing is already law. Let's look at some of the points of the bill which would add to the already 19 crimes this state prosecutes as capital offenses.

1. Greer’s bill would make murders committed on school or day care campuses capital offenses. The murder of any child, no matter where, under the age of 14 is already a capital offense. Also, the murder of two or more individuals during the same act is also a capital crime. Greer's bill would add older children and school workers to the special victims, but is mainly unneeded.

2. Greer’s bill also adds the murder of prosecutors as a capital offense. The murder of any state or federal official because of their office is already a capital offense.

3. Murders of family members of law enforcement, correction officers (sic) and judges as acts of revenge would be punishable with death. While these type crimes are not specifically capital crimes in themselves, they are if the crime also involves breaking and entering, kidnapping, or shooting into an occupied vehicle or dwelling - in other words, most of the ways these crimes would be carried out.

Now, if Rep. Lynn Greer of Rogersville would only introduce legislation on abolishing, or at least amending, the state's current law on certificates of need. He promised two years ago to do so.

We're still waiting...