NEW VOICES: ​“How New Jersey Abolished the Death Penalty”

In 1982, as a sec­ond term Assemblyman, Raymond Lesniak vot­ed to rein­state the death penal­ty in New Jersey. In December 2007, New Jersey vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty, becom­ing the first state in 40 years to accom­plish this. Senator Lesniak was one of the spon­sors and leg­isla­tive lead­ers of the abo­li­tion bill. He has writ­ten a new book: ​“The Road to Abolition: How New Jersey Abolished the Death Penatly.”

In com­ment­ing on the book, Senator Lesniak said, ​“Why do I care so much about the mur­der­ers on death row who, except for the inno­cent ones, com­mit­ted the most heinous acts of mur­der imag­in­able? I don’t. I’m not as enlight­ened as Sister Helen Prejean. But I do care about the dam­age that hold­ing on to anger, resent­ment and the need for vengeance does to us as a soci­ety and as human beings.”

For more infor­ma­tion about the book, see The Road to Justice and Peace. Posted May 10, 2008.