The report from the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission that called for an end to the state’s death penal­ty was pre­pared by a group of indi­vid­u­als rep­re­sent­ing a wide vari­ety of view­points and expe­ri­ence. The mem­bers of the Commission were:

Governor Jon S. Corzine appointed: 

  • Eddie Hicks, a mem­ber of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation; 
  • Kathleen Garcia, a mem­ber of the New Jersey Crime Victims’ Law Center; 
  • the Reverend M. William Howard, Jr., of Bethany Baptist Church in Newark;
  • Rabbi Robert Scheinberg of the United Synagogue of Hoboken; 
  • and the Honorable James H. Coleman, Jr., a retired jus­tice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. 


The President of the Senate, Richard J. Codey, appointed: 

  • the Honorable John F. Russo, for­mer President of the New Jersey State Senate, 
  • and West Orange Police Chief James P. Abbott.


The Speaker of the General Assembly, Joseph J. Roberts, Jr., appointed: 

  • Kevin Haverty, an attor­ney in private practice, 
  • and Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher.


The ex offi­cio mem­bers of the Commission were: 

  • Public Defender Yvonne Smith Segars;
  • the Attorney General;
  • the designee of the President of the New Jersey State Bar Association, Miles S. Winder, III;
  • and Hudson County Prosecutor Edward J. De Fazio, rep­re­sent­ing the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey.

The Honorable John Russo filed a minor­i­ty in which he dis­agreed with many of the points in the report, but stat­ed: ​“I con­cede that if the death penal­ty is going to be admin­is­tered as it has been since 1982, it may need to be abol­ished.”
(N.J. Death Penalty Study Commission Report, January 2007). See 

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