A proposal to allow non-unanimous jury verdicts in capital cases was rejected resoundingly Thursday in the state Senate, where lawmakers accused their House counterparts of playing politics with Georgia's death penalty.

The Senate voted 44-7 to delete the surprise amendment approved Wednesday in the House. It would have allowed a judge to impose death when at least 10 of 12 jurors supported it. Current law requires a unanimous verdict.

House Majority Whip Barry Fleming (R-Harlem), who is running for Congress, tacked the amendment onto Senate Bill 145, which would give prosecutors the option of seeking prison sentences of life without parole in a murder cases. Now, district attorneys can get life without parole for murder when they seek the death penalty or when the defendant has a prior violent felony.

Sen. Seth Harp (R-Midland) accused supporters of the non-unanimous jury amendment of "political grandstanding at the 11th hour." The proposal, Harp said, also would have placed the state's death penalty statute in jeopardy. "This will create a hole in the death penalty statute you could drive a battleship through," Harp said.

"This is a disaster in criminal jurisprudence," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Preston Smith (R-Rome) said. Smith, sponsor of the original bill, accused the House of "hijacking" his legislation at the last minute. He criticized his House counterparts for not respecting the legislative process and for not accepting his invitation to let his committee hold hearings on the non-unanimous jury proposal.

A year ago, Smith set a hearing for Fleming's non-unanimous jury bill but canceled it after Fleming did not show up to present it to the Judiciary Committee.

On Thursday, Smith explained that the House amendment put some provisions of Georgia's death-penalty statute in contradiction with others. "They have effectively ended the death penalty in Georgia," he said.

Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta), a Judiciary Committee member, rose in support of Smith's position and said Fleming should have honored the committee process. "Georgia's death penalty is valid, it's working and it's survived challenges," Reed said.

After the Senate vote, Fleming said his non-unanimous jury proposal, which cleared the House in 2007, has had a whole year to be discussed and debated. "To say this idea is last minute doesn't measure up to the facts," he said.