Posted on 12/14/2007 10:47:16 AM PST by Brilliant
New Jersey will become the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty under a measure lawmakers approved Thursday and the governor intends to sign...
Assembly members voted 44-36 to replace the death sentence with life in prison without parole. The state Senate approved the bill Monday, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, has said he will sign...
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. "We would be better served as a society by having a clear and certain outcome for individuals that carry out heinous crimes," Mr. Corzine said. "That's what I think we're doing, making certain that individuals would be imprisoned without any possibility of parole."
The measure would spare eight men on the state's death row, including Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender convicted of murdering 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. That case sparked a Megan's Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.
Marilyn Flax, whose husband Irving was kidnapped and murdered in 1989 by death row inmate John Martini Sr., said she seethes at the thought Mr. Martini will remain alive "while my innocent, loving, adoring husband lies in a grave."
Republicans said that's why they would vote against the bill. Assemblyman Richard Merkt said the bill was "a victory for murderers and rapists."
Senate Republicans had sought to retain the death penalty for those who murder law enforcement officials, rape and murder children, and terrorists, but the Senate rejected the idea. Democrats control the Legislature...
New Jersey has been barred from executing anyone under a 2004 court ruling that determined the state had to revise procedures... It never did...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
By the way, this is why there is no justice except vigilante justice.
Maybe Corzine will open up the governors mansion to convicted murders?
I'd say unbefreakinglievable, but I live in NYS. Sigh.
In a state controlled by thugs, this action must be considered a professional courtesy gift from the “political thugs” to the “Street thugs”....
The death penalty as it was applied in NJ didn’t deter anyone because it wasn’t used.
Does anyone really believe that a lifer just happily sits in his cell, and doesn’t file appeal after appeal, which is supposedly why the death penalty costs more than life? They have nothing better to do, and many prisons have better law libraries than most lawyers. They also file a great many lawsuits on anything and everything. They have nothing better to do.
Consider this. If I’m a lifer and there is nothing more that you can do to me, other than solitary confinement, can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t kill as many guards and/or convicts as I feel like killing? What are you going to do, cut off my tapioca pudding?
NJ is a $h!thole, but they deserve it, because of the scum they keep electing.
The death penalty as it was applied in NJ didn’t deter anyone because it wasn’t used.
Does anyone really believe that a lifer just happily sits in his cell, and doesn’t file appeal after appeal, which is supposedly why the death penalty costs more than life? They have nothing better to do, and many prisons have better law libraries than most lawyers. They also file a great many lawsuits on anything and everything. They have nothing better to do.
Consider this. If I’m a lifer and there is nothing more that you can do to me, other than solitary confinement, can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t kill as many guards and/or convicts as I feel like killing? What are you going to do, cut off my tapioca pudding?
NJ is a $h!thole, but they deserve it, because of the scum they keep electing.
I don’t why the Democrats are so opposed to the death penalty. I mean, it’s not like it keeps the recipient from voting even after the sentence is carried out. :)
They haven’t used the death penalty since somewhere near 1965 anyway right? What’s the difference?
Yeah. Felons can’t vote anyway, unless they are dead.
I’m wondering how much it is going to cost to keep Megan’s killer segregated from the rest of the Prisoners.
That is hardly the point.
Capital punishment is an important bargaining tool for prosecutors.
When you have a murderer who raped and killed a woman and the prosecutor knows he has got a tight case and also knows that the murderer in question killed another woman whose body was never recovered - well, he can walk into a conference with the murderer's lawyer and say: "If you tell us where your other victim is so her family can give her a decent burial, I will take the death penalty off the table."
It is leverage that a prosecutor can use for a wide variety of important outcomes.
The murderer and his attorney may know that NJ has rarely used the death penalty - but most people are not willing to take the chance that they probably won't go to the death chamber. They will cooperate in most cases rather than take even that tiny risk.
When the local radio station was discussing this today, it was pointed out that it is a violation of the Constitution (I assume NJs) to make this abolishment retroactive. But, it seems they are making it retro active to all sitting on death row.
Question, if someone kills a minor during a sex act, that is suppose to be a federal death penalty charge. How does that interact with NJ’s new little stunt?
Megan’s murderer can still be put to death under the federal law, right?
You mean it wasn’t already?
/sarc
They will be partying in Newark tonight.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Just reiterating what I heard on the local radio this morning. Inmates aren’t suppose to be treated differently. I don’t know the details of that; but supposedly, it isn’t suppose to work they way NJ’s is claiming.
Only if he’s convicted and awarded the death penalty under federal law.
So the murders will have to be retried federally than, no?
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