Post by MXB on Dec 10, 2007 18:22:25 GMT -5
By an 8-4 vote on Dec. 3, the New Jersey Senate Budget Committee voted to advance a bill to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole.
The bill would make New Jersey the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Senator Raymond Lesniak, the bill's sponsor, cited a recent case of wrongful conviction in New Jersey when explaining his support for abolishing the death penalty.
He stated, "There are hundreds of [people] throughout the United States who were wrongly convicted of murder…. You can't say it can't happen in New Jersey. It can. It's impossible for human beings to devise a system free of the risk of human error.”
In January of 2007, a New Jersey commission began investigating capital punishment and its place in the state’s criminal justice system. Their report found that not only was their no clear evidence that the death penalty deterred murder, but also that it was more expensive than sentencing a person to life in prison.
Families of several murder victims likewise urged the state to abolish the death penalty. Charles Bennett’s daughter and two grandchildren were killed by Bennett’s son-in-law Scott McCarter, who killed himself after the murders.
Bennett told the commission, "Had Scott lived I cannot imagine our family going through the agony of a death penalty process."
He also said that he and his family would have "fought ferociously" against a death sentence so they could get quicker justice for the loss of their loved ones.
The death penalty bill is expected to be put to a full vote in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly before the legislative session ends on Jan. 8, 2008. Governor Jon Corzine supports the bill.
The last execution in New Jersey took place in 1963, and the state currently has 8 people on death row.