Religious, activist leaders express death penalty concerns to panel

By Diana Penner (AP)

One after another, citizens rose to ask a state commission studying the death penalty to stop that practice, at least temporarily, while Indiana's laws are being reviewed.

But after Thursday's testimony, the group's chairman said a moratorium on capital punishment is neither within the commission's purview nor needed at this point, because no one on Indiana's Death Row has a firm execution date.

And today, death penalty opponents plan to let their feet do the talking in a five-day march from Indianapolis to Terre Haute, home of the nation's only Death Row for federal inmates. The Criminal Law Study Commission, which examines legal and criminal justice questions, is reviewing Indiana's death penalty laws and procedures at the request of Gov. Frank O'Bannon. O'Bannon asked for the inquiry in March after Illinois Gov. George Ryan stopped all executions in his state pending a formal review of how 13 people sentenced to death eventually were released from Death Row, some after being proved innocent.