Sen. Will Longwitz's attempted murder bill

Earlier today, I suggested that Rep. Bill Denny (R - Jackson) take a different approach to tinkering with the offense of attempted murder in Mississippi.  My law school classmate Sen. Will Longwitz (R - Madison) offered up a bill along the lines of what I'd suggested in that post.  You can read that bill here.  In short, it amends the attempt statute and sets the penalty for attempted murder at 20 years to life.

Sen. Longwitz's bill died in the Senate Judiciary A committee.  We'll see if Longwitz's legislation has more luck next year.  I'm not ready to say it's a perfect bill, but it certainly is a better approach than Denny's, and should receive consideration if lawmakers want to address attempted murder.

Why Rep. Bill Denny's attempted murder legislation keeps failing

For over a decade now, Rep. Bill Denny (R - Jackson) has been introducing legislation that would purportedly create the offense of attempted murder in Mississippi. His attempted murder bills have died every year, including this year, even though his party is in complete control of the Mississippi legislative process.

On its face, the bill seems to make sense. If someone sets out to murder someone and fails because their intended victim lives, that's attempted murder. And traditionally, attempted crimes carry a punishment similar to the completed crime. However, in modern Mississippi criminal practice such crimes are prosecuted as aggravated assaults rather than attempted murders. That might lead you to think that we just don't have attempted murder in our statutes, and that we should rectify the problem by passing legislation like Denny's.

You'd be wrong.