In the Senate — which has trended more conservative than the House this session — the bill had garnered several unlikely allies. Sen. Bill Landen, a reluctant sponsor of the bill, said that after years of budget cuts and eliminating line item after line item, he could no longer go home and feel good explaining the myriad cuts he’s made to the state budget while defending annual expenses like the death penalty, which costs the state roughly $1 million a year.

“Regardless of my personal thoughts — my religion doesn’t believe in the right to kill people — that’s not enough for me,” he said.

Opponents of the bill, meanwhile, argued retaining the death penalty would allow the justice system to offer closure to victims of the most heinous crimes, and could be used as a tool to coerce confessions from the state’s worst perpetrators. Others simply voted by feeling, Boner said.

“A lot of (the no votes) had a deep conviction that someone can do something so heinous that they have to die,” he added. “There’s no amount of reason or facts that you can give them that will change that. I also think there’s a generational gap, that folks who were from a time where the death penalty were used more often are more accustomed to it. It might have worked 30, 40 or 50 years ago, but that’s just not the case anymore.”