BATON ROUGE- At the capitol, state leaders are debating getting rid of the death penalty.

Last week a House bill to abolish the death penalty stalled, but Wednesday the Senate's version faces final passage.

Senator JP Morrell introduced his bill last month which would take away the possibility of a death sentence effective August 1st of this year. Currently, the death penalty is available for those convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree rape of victims under the age of 13, and it is a mandatory punishment for treason.

The proposed bill has made its way through the Senate Judiciary Committee and proposes replacing a death sentence with life in prison without parole for those found guilty of treason. According to the latest version of the bill, the death penalty would remain in place for crimes committed prior to August 2018.