Senate panel recommends abolishing death penalty.

Senate panel recommends abolishing death penalty. The state shouldn't be in the business of killing people, members of a Senate panel said in recommending the death penalty be abolished.
The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed the bill, 8-4, sending it to the Senate floor for further debate.
The measure by Sen. Dan Harrington, D-Butte, would commute death sentences to life in prison and abolish capital punishment in the future.
Efforts to abolish the death penalty have failed in each of the past three legislative sessions. There are 2 prisoners on death row in Montana. The state has executed 3 people since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.