Two years after a wrenching hearing on a possible death penalty ban, and just weeks after an inmate who was stymied in his quest to die at the hands of the state took his own life, Nevada lawmakers are once again grappling with ending capital punishment.

Democratic Assemblyman Ozzie Fumo and Democratic state Sen. James Ohrenschall are sponsoring AB149, which seeks to abolish the death penalty, and the Senate introduced a second such bill from the pair — SB246, which strikes language allowing the death penalty for first-degree murder — on Friday.

Nevada has not executed someone since 2006, even though there are 77 people on death row, largely because condemned inmates are entitled to what often becomes decades of appeals.

“We need to get that conversation started,” said Fumo, a criminal defense attorney. “There’s a misconception out there about what the death penalty means. I think most people in favor of it think when you get the death penalty, you’re executed within a year. And when they find out that Nevada just doesn’t do it, they change.”

The bills come against the backdrop of the case of Scott Dozier, who was convicted of two murders in the early 2000s and later opted to give up any further appeals of his death sentence. He was twice scheduled for execution and it was twice postponed over legal issues — first over concern about the humaneness of an untried lethal injection combination and later when drugmaker Alvogen objected to its product being used to kill someone.

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