Hearings to Begin on Historic Legislation to Abolish Death Penalty in New Jersey

The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hear­ings on May 10, 2007, on leg­is­la­tion that would replace the state’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. If passed, New Jersey would become the first state since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty leg­isla­tive­ly. The bill stems from a January report issued by a spe­cial study com­mis­sion appoint­ed by the New Jersey leg­is­la­ture. The com­mis­sion’s report over­whelm­ing­ly rec­om­mend­ed abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, not­ing that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem costs tax­pay­ers more than life terms for pris­on­ers, and that there is no evi­dence the death penal­ty deters peo­ple from com­mit­ting mur­ders.

​“The death penal­ty sim­ply does­n’t work as a deter­rent and the risks and costs involved far out­weigh any ben­e­fits it may bring to our soci­ety,” not­ed New Jersey Senator Shirley Turner, a sup­port­er of the mea­sure. ​“The fact is, there is no way to guar­an­tee that an inno­cent man or woman would not be wrong­ly exe­cut­ed. As a soci­ety, we can­not risk the lives of the inno­cent to exact pun­ish­ment on those who are guilty.… New Jersey has moved beyond the need for pun­ish­ments based on revenge rather than jus­tice. We are a decent, com­pas­sion­ate peo­ple who would rather see the most heinous crim­i­nals locked up for eter­ni­ty than exe­cut­ed,” she said.

Governor John Corzine favors abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty, as do Democratic lead­ers of both the New Jersey Senate and House. Currently, there are nine men on the state’s death row. New Jersey has not had an exe­cu­tion since 1963.
(Associated Press, May 6, 2007). See Recent Legislative Activity, Costs, Deterrence, and Innocence.

UPDATE: At the con­clu­sion of its hear­ing on leg­is­la­tion to replace the state’s death penal­ty with life with­out parole, the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee vot­ed 8 – 2 to release the mea­sure to the full Senate for con­sid­er­a­tion. (Associated Press, May 10, 2007).