The Death Penalty in 2007: Year End Report

Two dra­mat­ic events this year sym­bol­ized the broad changes that have been occur­ring in the death penal­ty around the coun­try. Executions halt­ed after September 25 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the mix­ture of chem­i­cals used in lethal injec­tions in Kentucky (Baze v. Rees). This de fac­to mora­to­ri­um on lethal injec­tions con­tributed to the fewest num­ber of exe­cu­tions in 13 years. 

On December 13, the New Jersey Assembly joined the state Senate in vot­ing to abol­ish the death penal­ty, replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. New Jersey’s gov­er­nor, Jon Corzine, signed the leg­is­la­tion on December 17, mak­ing the state the first juris­dic­tion to leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty in over 40 years. The leg­isla­tive votes fol­lowed rec­om­men­da­tions from a bi-par­ti­san com­mis­sion includ­ing vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and law enforce­ment offi­cials, and which were endorsed by the state’s Prosecutors’ Association. New Jersey’s action fol­lows the removal of the last per­son from New York’s death row in 2007, the final step in remov­ing New York from the list of death penal­ty states, which now num­bers 36. New York’s high court over­turned the death penal­ty in 2004, and after pub­lic hear­ings, the leg­is­la­ture reject­ed attempts to restore the punishment.

The cur­rent tem­po­rary mora­to­ri­um may give pol­i­cy-mak­ers an occa­sion to recon­sid­er the death penal­ty with a more crit­i­cal eye. Courts, leg­is­la­tures, and the pub­lic are increas­ing­ly look­ing at the death penal­ty through the prism of pub­lic pol­i­cy, reveal­ing its grow­ing costs along­side its delays, frus­tra­tion and mis­takes. While the case now pend­ing in the Supreme Court presents only a nar­row chal­lenge to a spe­cif­ic method of lethal injec­tion, it is symp­to­matic of the many prob­lems sur­round­ing this pun­ish­ment which are con­stant­ly being exposed and, once exposed, prove dif­fi­cult or impos­si­ble to resolve. Meanwhile, the ​“clo­sure” that pro­po­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have argued it will bring to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies appears more and more illusory.