Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990 TAG: 9006290406
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Senators also rejected a move to drop death penalty provisions and replace them with mandatory life sentences.
"The drug traffickers have not stopped using assault weapons, they're not going to stop using assault weapons but at least we can stop them from using these assault weapons," declared Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.
The Senate voted 50-48 in favor of keeping the restrictions as the members resurrected a broad crime bill. Both of Virginia's senators, Republican John Warner and Democrat Chuck Robb, voted in favor of the restrictions.
After that vote, it went on to add tougher mandatory sentences to the bill by an 87-12 vote. Forty-two Democrats were joined by eight Republicans in upholding the semiautomatic restrictions. Thirty-six Republicans and 12 Democrats voted against.
As the Senate worked into the night, it rejected 73-25 a move by Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., to drop the numerous death penalty provisions in the bill and replace them with mandatory life sentences.
Hatfield said the death penalty represented "a primal urge for revenge, sadistic revenge" and Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., said the Senate seemed "to be on a death penalty rampage today."
The Senate also approved an amendment that would allow Indian reservations to decide for themselves whether to impose the death penalty in local murder cases that ordinarily would come under federal law.
The measure would not affect provisions of the bill calling for the death penalty for presidential assassination, treason, espionage and other crimes.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Indian tribes should have the same rights as states in deciding whether to impose capital punishment for murder.
Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., countered that it would "have the effect of exempting Indians who commit heinous, vicious murders from the federal death penalty simply because their tribes don't like it."
Major provisions of the bill call for the death penalty for 30 federal offenses and would streamline the appeals system with an eye to ending delays of a decade or more in carrying out death sentences. The measure also would make minor changes in the money-laundering laws.
by CNB