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New Jersey To Become First State in 30 Years To Repeal Death Penalty
Opponents of the death penalty in the United States were celebrating a crucial vote in New Jersey yesterday that clears the way for it to become the first state in four decades formally to repeal capital punishment - a reform that could help turn the tide of public opinion across the country.
The state Senate voted by 21 to 16 to replace executions with life in prison without the possibility of parole for the worst offenders. The lower house is widely expected to follow suit tomorrow and convey the bill to Jon Corzine, the Governor, for signature in January. He has long favoured scrapping the death penalty.
Since a ruling by the Supreme Court in 1976 permitted states to resume executions, the US has stood alone among the major Western democracies in practising capital punishment. In 2006, the US, Iraq, Iran, China, Sudan and Pakistan accounted for 91 per cent of all recorded executions worldwide.
Doubts have been raised in the US, however, over the death penalty's implementation and the risks of mistakes. In numerous states, executions are now on hold either by orders of the courts or moratoria declared by their governors. Death sentences have fallen 66 per cent since 1999.
But New Jersey is poised to be the first state to repeal the practice. Such a step would be "the clearest signal yet that the public is moving away from capital punishment," the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment group, said.
Sister Helen Prejean, the New Orleans nun whose book about ministering to death row inmates, Dead Man Walking, became a film, joined those urging New Jersey to abolish capital punishment. "This is a special moment," she said before yesterday's vote. "New Jersey is going to be a beacon on the hill."
There is little doubt that the bill will win passage in the lower house - the General Assembly - where the Democrats have control, or that Mr Corzine will ratify it.A spokeswoman confirmed that he planned to sign it.
The death penalty is currently on the books in 37 of the 50 US states. Pressure for change has been building, however, in part because of several recent cases where DNA testing has exonerated condemned inmates. In 2000, Illinois declared a moratorium on executions because of concern about wrongful convictions and several states have since followed suit.
A decision by the US Supreme Court in September, meanwhile, to consider a specific case questioning whether the use of lethal injection in Kentucky is humane has darkened execution chambers across the country for the time being and spurred wider debate. Most observers do not expect the deliberations to result in abolition nationwide, however.
The New Jersey decision will have minimal actual impact - only eight inmates are currently on death row and no one has been executed for more than 40 years - but the passage of a law finally repealing the death penalty would resonate across the country.
Larry Cox, the director of Amnesty International USA, also applauded the move. He said it was "just plain wrong" to take a life when there was any possibility of innocence.
A poll published yesterday by Quinnipiac University showed the repeal was opposed by 53 per cent of New Jersey residents, with 39 per cent in favour. Moreover, 78 per cent of respondents favoured keeping the death penalty for the most violent offenders. Nationally, polls show a majority supporting capital punishment, but by narrowing margins.
The momentum towards abandoning the death penalty accelerated in January when a special commission came down in favour of reform. "There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency," it concluded. Support for reform also came from the New Jersey Catholic Conference.
Democrat Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo is among those planning to vote in favour of repeal in the lower chamber. "One of the things about the death penalty that always bothered me is that it seems to lower us to the very level of the people we are trying to execute," he said.
The Assembly Speaker, Joseph Roberts, a Democrat, said that the time had come for reform.
© 2007 The Independent
10 Comments so far
Show AllIs the chair going to Gitmo?
Ponder this name: STEFAN KISZKO - there's a very good Wikipedia article about his case. Then reflect on what it would have been like if this man had been judicially murdered, instead of having his life put on hold for 16 years for a murder he couldn't have done. Think also of what a tower of strength his mother was, in her lonely battle to secure her Stefan's eventual vindication.
Even though the hangman had been pensioned-off 10 years before Stefan was sent to prison, his was the case which, more than any other, finally convinced me that the decision Parliament made to do away with the death penalty in my country was the right one. It's heartening to see that in at least one state in your country, the powers that be are beginning to see this too.
Congratulations, New Jersey. The US may finally be joining the civilized world with respect to this issue, better late than never.
I'm not so sure about PJD.
Has capital punishment been used incorrectly? Yes, but I'd amend it, not scrap it altogether, for the most severe of crimes.
Now if all the other states will quickly follow suit! Too bad there isn't some way it could be scrapped forever, and not be reinstated like it was last time.
Even if it were to be amended for the most severe crimes, someone'll always come along to raise the bar on what they consider needing to be in that category.
Camendola,
The majority of civilized nations have scrapped the death penalty for good many fairly long ago. Do you believe that the US has some some special insight on this issue that virtually all of the world's democracies have somehow neglected to consider?
The death penalty is immoral, vile and repugnant - it relies on the profoundly unjust notion that the State reserves the exclusive right to commit the ultimate form of violence, murder, with impunity.
It is not a coincidence that the only western country with the death penalty is also the only one that reserves for itself the right to invade and bomb any nation in the world, and even used nuclear weapons, for whatever reason it feels like - the most common one being the simple "it a vital national interest".
A nation that still has the capital punishment, has not quite finished the cultural stages that are required to show its own citizens, that life is always sacred and not a governments decision when it will end. Euthanasia, abortion are integral to that conversation,as are war and torture.
Connected by the very soul.
No more death penalty in America!!!
Waterborading? Wellll, not too sure about that, says our newly anointed Attorney General.
I noted there was no media follow-up when Mike Huckabee said recently that we need the death penalty to keep the worst murderers from killing yet again. (Are there any Republican candidates who are against the death penalty -- or who are at all concerned about the question of fairness or the possibility of executing innocent people?) But, of course, life without parole accomplishes the same aim.
Thank you, New Jersey!