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Last updated on Tuesday, January 13, 2015
(STATEHOUSE) - A Senate committee takes up a bill today to authorize the death penalty for beheadings.
The maximum sentence for murder in Indiana is 65 years. It only becomes eligible for capital punishment or life without parole if it meets one of 34 aggravating factors, from the killer being on probation to the victim being tortured.
Senator Brent Steele (R-Bedford) authored the bill which added torture to the law, after the 1992 murder of 12-year-old Shanda Sharer in Madison. But he says legislative analysts told him that provision doesn't apply to beheadings. Another provision covering dismemberment doesn't apply either, because that word assumes the victim is already dead.
Steele argues beheading is so gruesome and so painful to the victim that it deserves the ultimate punishment.
Beheadings have been most associated with Islamic militants overseas. But Steele says there have been three decapitation murders in the U.S, in the weeks since he filed the bill -- all of them domestic violence cases.
The Senate Courts and Criminal Law Committee will hear the bill. Steele says he expects the bill to receive strong support in both houses.
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