[What a relief this must have been--NJ hasn't executed anyone in the last forty years! A meaningless political gesture?]

N.J. first to abolish the death penalty
Cost of appeals, uncertainty over guilt were factors.
By Craig R. McCoy

Inquirer Trenton Bureau

TRENTON - Gov. Corzine yesterday signed into law a measure to abolish the state's death penalty, putting New Jersey into the vanguard of the fight against capital punishment.
With Corzine's signature, New Jersey became the first state to remove the death penalty from the books since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. Corzine said yesterday he saw a moral duty to end "state-endorsed killing."

The Democratic governor said the death penalty amounted to an "endorsement of violence," and as such it only "begets violence."

He also marshaled a series of pragmatic objections to capital punishment: that it did not deter; that it risked killing the unjustly accused; that there likely was no humane way to kill with lethal injection; and that it cost taxpayers millions in legal bills defending endless appeals from death-row inmates.

The new law immediately spared the lives of the eight men in New Jersey who had been awaiting death by lethal injection. They include the convicted killer of Megan Kanka, the 7-year-old whose rape and murder fueled a national movement to register sex offenders.

In a step Corzine said was designed to ensure that the men remained behind bars until their deaths, he disclosed that on Sunday night he signed orders commuting the sentences of those eight to life in prison without parole.

Assemblyman Wilfredo Carraballo, the Newark Democrat who was a prime sponsor of the abolition bill, said the cause gathered momentum with the support of some of the relatives of murder victims.

These survivors, he said, "had the grace to tell us we were doing them no favors by taking someone's life."

However, Assemblyman Alex DeCroce, who leads the Republicans in the Assembly, where they are in the minority, ripped into Corzine.

"I consider it abominable that the governor would repeal the death penalty for cold-blooded killers," DeCroce, of Morris County, said in a statement.

With most, but not all, of the yea votes coming from Corzine's fellow Democrats, who are in the majority in both chambers, the Legislature passed the abolition bill last week and sent it to Corzine, who has long been on record as a death-penalty opponent.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned every death sentence in the nation, saying the penalty was being unevenly applied. Four years later, it laid out new rules by which capital punishment could be implemented. After a long debate, New Jersey put capital punishment back into effect in 1982.

Even so, the state has not in fact applied the ultimate punishment since 1963. The last New Jerseyan put to death was Ralph Hudson, who stabbed his wife to death in the Atlantic City restaurant where she worked as a waitress. He died in the electric chair.

In other states where executions were recently halted, the decisions came after a local court ruling voided the death-penalty law, as in New York, or because a governor imposed a moratorium, as in Illinois.

Richard Kanka, Megan's father, noted yesterday that Corzine had signed the bill exactly 15 years to the day that death-row inmate Ambrose Harris kidnapped, raped and murdered Kristin Huggins, 22, a Bucks County artist.

"Just another slap in the face to the victims," Kanka said.

Some lawyers have expressed worry that, because law cannot be changed retroactively, the death-penalty repeal in New Jersey could prompt the eight on death row to contend that the new penalty of life without parole was only for future convicted killers and that they should be eligible for parole.

To block any chance of that, according to Corzine aides, lawyers in his administration drafted the commutation orders the governor signed Sunday, stipulating that all should die in prison.

Tom Rosenthal, a spokesman for the New Jersey Public Defender's Office, which represents the eight men, said the agency was exploring whether it was legal for Corzine to impose sentence without parole, as that wasn't an option in state law for all eight when they were sentenced.

Still, Rosenthal said his office had only begun to research the issue.

As a practical matter, even under the old law, most of those on death row would have to serve decades more before they could even apply for parole.

Of the eight, David Cooper, now 37, convicted of raping and strangling a 6-year-old, would be the youngest before he was eligible for parole - at age 78.

Corzine's signature yesterday climaxed a movement that began picking up real steam in New Jersey in January, when a special state commission voted, 13-1, to urge the state to abolish the death penalty.

Among other points, the commission found that capital punishment was increasingly viewed as "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency." It noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had recently banned executions for juveniles and the mentally retarded.

The commission also said the death penalty raised the possibility of an "irreversible mistake."

Kathleen Garcia, whose nephew was killed in 1984, said the failure to actually execute anyone left relatives without closure.

Garcia, who founded a center that counsels victims' relatives, voted in favor of abolition as a member of the state's review commission.

"It was a joke in New Jersey, a very cruel joke," she said. "It was time to end it."


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Contact staff writer Craig R. McCoy at 609-989-9016 or comic@phillynews.com.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.

JAS

Some decry N.J. death penalty abolition

By TOM HESTER Jr.
Associated Press Writer

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The New Jersey Public Defender's Office said Tuesday it won't challenge Gov. Jon S. Corzine's decision to commute the death sentences of eight men now that the state's death penalty has been abolished.

The office had questioned whether Corzine had authority to do that because the penalty of life imprisonment without chance of parole didn't exist when the men committed their crimes. But spokesman Tom Rosenthal said legal research has shown that the governor does have the authority.

Corzine commuted the sentences Monday as he signed a law making New Jersey the first to abolish the death penalty in more than 40 years. Relatives of those killed by the eight had worried that if the commutations were overturned, it could open the door to at least some eventually getting released on parole.

Rosenthal said federal case law related to the 2003 decision by then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan to commute death sentences of all 167 inmates on that state's death row to life in prison indicated governors have authority to do so and Corzine's move would be upheld.

"We wouldn't prevail, so we won't be pursuing that," said Rosenthal, whose office represents the eight men. He said that means the men who sat on death row will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Even without a court challenge, the action could still have political effects.

Marilyn Flax, whose husband was abducted and murdered in 1989, vowed to work against Corzine and the lawmakers who voted last week to abolish the death penalty.

"I will make sure my voice is used and they are not re-elected," she said.

John Martini Sr., the man who killed Flax's husband, is among the eight men whose sentences were commuted.

Another of the eight is Jesse Timmendequas, the 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.

Megan's father, Richard Kanka, is still hopeful the men won't see old age. "The only thing we can really hope for is somebody in jail will knock off these guys," he said.

The New Jersey Constitution gives the governor authority to "grant pardons and reprieves in all cases other than impeachment and treason."

New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982 - six years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions - but hasn't executed anyone since 1963.

Corzine said he was moved by passionate views on both sides, but believes eliminating capital punishment "best captures our state's highest values and reflects our best efforts to search for true justice."

A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed New Jersey voters supported keeping the death penalty by 53 percent to 39 percent. The telephone poll of 1,085 voters was conducted from Dec. 5-9 and had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The bill passed the legislature largely along party lines, with controlling Democrats supporting the abolition and Republicans opposed. Republicans unsuccessfully sought to retain the death penalty for those who murder law enforcement officials, terrorists and those who rape and murder children.

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 by lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

If the cost of appeals is an issue...

And if the appeals are necessary because we don't want to execute innocent people...

The implication is that we don't mind so much if innocent people spend their life in prison.

The next time an officer is murdered in NJ, I guarantee there will be a movement to reinstate the death penalty.

quote:

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Originally posted by JB:
The next time an officer is murdered in NJ, I guarantee there will be a movement to reinstate the death penalty.

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And given the recent research into the issue, one wonders whether that particular murder-to-come would happen at all if the DP had been left in place.