HELENA — Marietta Lane of Three Forks said she long ago put behind her any notion of revenge against the man who kidnapped, raped and dismembered her 7-year-old daughter three decades ago.

An opponent of the death penalty, she told the House Judiciary Committee that executions should be outlawed as "premeditated, barbaric, state-sanctioned killing."

"Every time we use it, we become what we deplore — people who kill people," Lane said Thursday.

She was one of several people voicing support for a measure that would abolish execution as a means of punishment and replace it with life in prison with no chance for parole. No one spoke against the bill.

House Bill 529 is the second time in two legislative sessions that Rep. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena, has sponsored elimination of the death penalty.

"This bill is not about sympathy for murderers," she said. "I suppose it is natural to want retribution. But I ask you to consider, is it the role of the state to carry out that revenge in the name of the people, with the tax dollars of the people?"

Kaufmann argued that the death penalty doesn't deter crime, and does little more than make the state a killer and diminish society's dislike for taking human life.

She said pursuing the death penalty through the related legal morass is more costly and takes a greater toll on victims' families than would putting someone behind bars for life.

John Connor Jr., who heads the Justice Department's Prosecution Services Bureau, said death penalty cases involve "horrific litigation" over many years, and victims' families are warned that they are going to have to relive the events repeatedly as legal appeals come and go.

He did not take a position on the bill.

John Sheehy, a former liberal member of the Montana Supreme Court, said he has always considered executions to be cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the constitution. Lawmakers cannot ignore the possibility that innocent people may be put to death, he added.

"The risk of the wrong person being executed is intolerable in a civilized society," Sheehy said.

Lane said that, contrary to belief, capital punishment doesn't bring relief to victim's families. In her case, her daughter's killer confessed to that murder and others in the area because he did not face the death penalty, she said.

"Capital punishment degrades, dehumanizes and debilitates us as a human society," she said.

The Rev. Jerry Lowney, who teaches criminology at Carroll College and is a longtime death penalty foe, said he believes executions spark sociopaths to commit murders.

The committee did not act on the bill.