[Vision2020] New Jersey Takes Steps to End Death Penalty

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

The U.S. may rejoin the ranks of civilized nations after all.  Many states have now suspended all executions, primarily because of problems with lethal injections, and for the first time in the history of poll taking, more Americans support life without parole than death (48 to 47 percent.)

It is only a matter of degree of barbarity and immorality between Saddam's hanging and "humane" executions. (Americans who want revenge can still create unseemly spectacles outside the prison walls.) In both the state is involved in the premeditated killing of a legal person.

Nick Gier

January 5, 2007
Editorial, The New York Times
Rethinking the Death Penalty

New Jersey could take the lead among states in abolishing the death penalty if it follows the recommendation that a legislative commission made this week. It is the right thing to do, and not just because capital punishment is barbaric and a poor deterrent. It has become increasingly clear as the use of DNA evidence has grown that there is simply too great a risk of making an irreversible mistake.

While we would have used stronger language, we applaud the 13-member panel for having the courage to recommend that New Jersey become the first state to abolish the death penalty since states began reinstating it 35 years ago. The commission included two prosecutors, a police chief, members of the clergy and a man whose daughter was murdered in 2000. Only one member, a former state senator who wrote the death penalty law, dissented.

Although it has nine people on death row, New Jersey has had a moratorium on executions since 2005 and has not put anyone to death since 1963. Nevertheless, the panel’s recommendation that the death penalty be replaced with life imprisonment without parole is likely to have significant influence both inside and outside the state. It comes as about 10 of the 38 states with death penalties, including New York, have suspended executions and as recent developments, like DNA exonerations and a botched lethal injection in Florida last month, have created a growing unease about executions.

With Gov. Jon Corzine opposed to the death penalty, and substantial numbers of capital punishment opponents in both houses of the Legislature, there is a reasonable chance the commission’s recommendations will become law. That would make New Jersey’s criminal justice system more civilized and fair. It could also prod other states to abandon their own use of what Justice Harry Blackmun called the “machinery of death.”