As lawmakers get into a new year, several bills will be considered.

One bill that District 24 Senator Jerry Behn is hoping for is to reinstate the death penalty for individuals who kidnap, rape and murder another person. Behn says currently, the law allows for anyone who commits each offense separately to get life in prison.

“So if you kidnap, rape and murder it creates a perverted incentive to murder your victim so there’s no witnesses. That’s just crazy in my mind. So I would like to reinstitute, in cases of horrific crimes like that, I would like an additional punishment so that the perpetrator is not incentivized to murder their victim.”

Behn notes the reason why it hasn’t been brought to a sub-committee is because the head of the judiciary committee will not bring it up, and the previous Senate Majority Leader wouldn’t bring it up to the Senator floor for debate, even if it were to pass out of committee.

Behn is hoping that his bill gets some traction this year in the Senate Judiciary Committee and then have it go to the full Senate floor for debate.