Representatives decisively rejected Governor Mitt Romney's bill (H3834) that proposed to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts for selected forms of murder. The vote was 53-100. Mr. Romney had argued that using DNA-based technologies to validate guilt made the measure a moral response to crime. Massachusetts has not had a death penalty statute for more than 30 years, and violent crime has continued to fall nonetheless. This fact had led many observers to conclude that Mr. Romney was more interested in appealing to conservative voters elsewhere during the 2008 presidential race, rather than actually believing such a measure might have any positive effect on crime in his own state. The overwhelmingly Catholic House widened its margin of opposition substantially from the last time such a measure came up (73-80) under former Governor Paul Cellucci in 1999.