NJ abolishes the death penalty

New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty
TRENTON, N.J., Dec. 17, 2007 (CBS/AP)

New Jersey on Monday became the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty under a bill signed by Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a move being hailed across the world as a historic victory against capital punishment. Corzine signed the bill at a Statehouse ceremony.

"We have seized the moment and are poised to join the ranks of other states and countries that view the death penalty as discriminatory, immoral and barbaric," said state Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, D- Essex. The bill, approved last week by the state's Assembly and Senate, will replace the death sentence with life in prison without parole.

A special state commission found in January that the death penalty was a more expensive sentence than life in prison, hasn't deterred murder and risks killing an innocent person. "The state is taking a painful but necessary step," said Corzine, a Democrat.

Among the eight spared is Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender who murdered 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. The case inspired Megan's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.

The bill passed the Legislature largely along party lines, with controlling Democrats supporting the abolition and minority Republicans opposed. "It's simply a specious argument to say that, somehow, after six millennia of recorded history, the punishment no longer fits the crime," said Assemblyman Joseph Malone, R-Burlington. Republicans had sought to retain the death penalty for those who murder law enforcement officials, rape and murder children, and terrorists, but Democrats rejected that. "A thorough examination of the state's death penalty system has revealed it for what it truly is - a colossal public policy failure that wastes taxpayers' dollars and diverts valuable resources from proven crime prevention measures," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

Although New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions, it hasn't executed anyone since 1963. The last states to eliminate the death penalty were Iowa and West Virginia in 1965, according to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Under New Jersey's measure, the eight men on death row have 60 days to decide whether to drop appeals and accept life in prison without parole. Those who don't drop appeals retain their death sentence, but New Jersey has been barred from executing anyone under a 2004 court ruling that deemed invalid the state's lethal injection procedures. The nation has executed 1,099 people since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the death penalty in 1976.

In 1999, 98 people were executed, the most since 1976; last year 53 people were executed, the lowest since 1996. Other states have considered abolishing the death penalty recently, but none has advanced as far as New Jersey.

According to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, 37 states have the death penalty. States with the death penalty: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming. States without the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

Bills to abolish the death penalty were recently approved by a Colorado House committee, the Montana Senate and the New Mexico House. But none of those bills has advanced. The nation's last execution was Sept. 25 in Texas. Since then, executions have been delayed pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether execution through lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In Rome, the Sant'Egidio Community, a lay Roman Catholic organization at the forefront of an international anti-death penalty movement, said New Jersey's decision is a "crucial passage" for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment. Rome will put golden light on the Colosseum in support. Once the arena for deadly gladiator combat and executions, the Colosseum is now a symbol of the fight against the death penalty. Since 1999, the first century monument Colosseum has been bathed in golden light every time a death sentence is commuted or a country abolishes capital punishment.

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