HMM: Red states move to end death penalty.

“I think we have to decide what our system to look like. If it’s not a deterrent, we have to ask ourselves what is it,” said state Rep. Jared Olsen (R), who sponsored the Wyoming bill. “I think the only thing we can conclude is that it serves one purpose, and that’s retribution. I personally don’t believe that we want to enshrine in our laws a system of retribution.”

Olsen said he was troubled by the number of prisoners sentenced to death who had subsequently been exonerated. Since 1973, more than 160 people have been released from death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a think tank that opposes capital punishment.

“That tells me that the system is broken,” Olsen said. “It is way too much authority to vest in our government, and we get it wrong.”

McCoy said he is building a coalition of Catholic legislators who oppose the death penalty on moral grounds and traditional Republicans who see it as ineffective both in deterring crime and in keeping costs down.

“I’m a very pro-life person, and if you’re going to be pro-life, it would include these lives,” McCoy said. “I’m hoping we can at least get a vote.”

I’m not gung-ho about the death penalty either way, but it’s interesting to see what could be the ground shifting under typically conservative law-and-order issue — without a Civil War like the big one the Democrats are enduring over a whole host of issues.