In a recent editorial, The New York Times praised New Jersey’s replacement of the death penalty with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. The Times wrote, “It took 31 years, but the moral bankruptcy, social imbalance, legal impracticality and ultimate futility of the death penalty has finally penetrated the consciences of lawmakers in one of the 37 states that arrogates to itself the right to execute human beings.”

The Times noted the importance of the innocence issue in the New Jersey vote: “New Jersey’s decision to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole seems all the wiser coming in the middle of a month that has already seen the convictions of two people formerly on death row in other states repudiated. In one case, the defendant was found not guilty following a new trial.”

Also noted was the participation by law enforcement and victims’ representatives in the effort to end capital punishment in the state:

The momentum to repeal capital punishment has been building in New Jersey since January, when a 13-member legislative commission recommended its abolition. The panel, which included two prosecutors, a police chief, members of the clergy and a man whose daughter was murdered in 2000, cited serious concerns about the imperfect nature of the justice system and the chance of making an irreversible mistake. The commission also concluded, quite correctly, that capital punishment is both a poor deterrent and “inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.”

The Times called for a wider reconsideration of the death penalty: “New Jersey has set a worthy example for the federal government, and for other states that have yet to abandon the creaky, error-prone machinery of death.”
(“A Long Time Coming,” The New York Times, December 15, 2007). See also Editorials and Recent Legislation.

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