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State & Federal

New Jersey

News & Developments


News

Jan 12, 2018

Experience Shows No ​“Parade of Horribles” Following Abolition of the Death Penalty

States that have recent­ly abol­ished the death penal­ty have not expe­ri­enced the ​“parade of hor­ri­bles” — includ­ing increased mur­der rates — pre­dict­ed by death-penal­ty pro­po­nents, accord­ing to death-penal­ty experts who par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pan­el dis­cus­sion at the 2017 American Bar Association nation­al meet­ing in New York City. Instead, the pan­elists said, abo­li­tion appears to have cre­at­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties to move for­ward with oth­er broad­er crim­i­nal jus­tice reforms.

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Dec 28, 2017

Judge Finds New Jersey Federal Capital Defendant Intellectually Disabled, Bars Death Penalty

A New Jersey U.S. dis­trict court judge has barred fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors from seek­ing the death penal­ty against Farad Roland, find­ing that Roland is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. After an eigh­teen-day evi­den­tiary hear­ing fea­tur­ing six­teen wit­ness­es, Judge Esther Salas ruled on December 18 that Roland — accused of five killings in con­nec­tion with a drug-traf­fick­ing gang — had ​“abun­dant­ly sat­is­fied his bur­den of prov­ing his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty by a pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence.” In 2002 in Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court held that sub­ject­ing indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty to…

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Dec 18, 2017

New Jersey Marks Tenth Anniversary of Abolition of Capital Punishment

On December 17, 2007, New Jersey abol­ished the death penal­ty. On the tenth anniver­sary of abo­li­tion, the edi­to­r­i­al board of the New Jersey Law Journal writes, ​“On the Death Penalty, New Jersey Got it Right.” The edi­to­r­i­al board wrote, ​“Abolition has proven its worth, in that there has been no surge of mur­ders, a sig­nif­i­cant decline of pros­e­cu­tion and appeal expens­es, and the elim­i­na­tion of unre­me­di­a­ble judi­cial mis­takes. [Abolition] was and remains both the right thing and the sen­si­ble thing to have done.” In August 1982, New Jersey reen­act­ed the…

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Jul 23, 2012

INNOCENCE: State Supreme Court Takes Lead on Eyewitness Identification Errors

One of the prin­ci­pal caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in death penal­ty cas­es and oth­er felonies is mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. On July 19, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued instruc­tions designed to help jurors bet­ter eval­u­ate the reli­a­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions. A judge is now required to tell jurors before delib­er­a­tions begin that stress lev­els, dis­tance, or poor light­ing can affect an eyewitness’s abil­i­ty to make an accu­rate iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. The new instruc­tions also warn that fac­tors such as the time between the com­mis­sion of a crime and an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of a…

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May 30, 2012

NEW VOICES: New Jersey Attorney General Does Not Want Death Penalty Back

Jeff Chiesa was recen­ty sworn in as New Jersey’s new Attorney General. He for­mer­ly served as chief coun­sel and exec­u­tive assis­tant to Governor Chris Christie. In dis­cussing his pri­or­i­ties, he said he would not sup­port rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty. Chiesa said his opin­ion on the top­ic had evolved over the years and he would not sup­port restor­ing it in the state. New Jersey abol­ished the death penal­ty in 2007, becom­ing the first state to enact such leg­is­la­tion in more than 40 years. ​“You can’t be wrong about it,…

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Dec 05, 2011

STUDIES: Eyewitness Identification Comes Under Supreme Court and Scientific Scrutiny

The U.S. Supreme Court recent­ly con­sid­ered Perry v. New Hampshire, a case ques­tion­ing the valid­i­ty of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny when the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was made under unre­li­able cir­cum­stances. At the same time, years of sci­en­tif­ic study on the accu­ra­cy of human mem­o­ry are point­ing to the need for reform in the use of eye­wit­ness evi­dence in crim­i­nal cas­es. Barbara Tversky, a psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at Columbia University, whose exper­i­ments on mem­o­ry were report­ed in the jour­nal Cognitive Psychology, not­ed, ​“Memory is weak in eye­wit­ness sit­u­a­tions because it’s over­loaded. An event hap­pens so fast,…

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Jan 13, 2011

NEW VOICES: ​“Police Officials Argue Death Penalty Doesn’t Make Us Safer”

Four law enforce­ment offi­cials from var­i­ous coun­tries who came togeth­er in Washington, D.C., in 2010 for a ground­break­ing inter­na­tion­al dia­logue on the death penal­ty recent­ly pub­lished an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News regard­ing their dis­cus­sion. From their expe­ri­ence, they dis­count­ed the argu­ment that the death penal­ty deters poten­tial offenders.

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Dec 11, 2007

New Jersey Abolishes the Death Penalty

New Jersey Abolishes the Death PenaltyOn December 17, 2007, Governor Jon Corzine signed a bill that abol­ish­es the death penal­ty in New Jersey and replaces it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. On Sunday, December 16th, Corzine com­mut­ed the sen­tences of the eight men on death row to life with­out the parole sen­tences. (“NJ Bans Death Penalty” Associated Press, December 17, 2007). The New Jersey Assembly approved this bill to replace the state’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole by a vote of 44 – 36 on December…

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Aug 18, 2005

Important Court Decisions in New Jersey and Louisiana

The Appellate Division of New Jersey​’s Superior Court in State v. Jimenez announced new pro­ce­dures on August 17, 2005 for decid­ing claims of men­tal retar­da­tion by a defen­dant fac­ing the death penal­ty: (a) the State must be put to the bur­den of prov­ing the absence of men­tal retar­da­tion when a col­orable issue is pre­sent­ed; (b) the State’s bur­den is to prove the absence of men­tal retar­da­tion beyond a rea­son­able doubt; © the jury must be the factfind­er; and (d) a defen­dant may nev­er be put to any bur­den of…

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Notable Commutations/Clemencies

In 2007, the sentences of all 8 inmates on death row were commuted to life without parole the day prior to the abolition of the death penalty in New Jersey.

Inmates commuted: David Cooper, Ambrose Harris, Nathaniel Harvey, Sean Kennety, John Martini, Jessie Timmendequas, Marko Bey and Brian Wakefield.

Milestones in Abolition/Reinstatement

A state appeals court ruled in 2004 that New Jersey’s procedures for administering the death penalty were unconstitutional. The state rewrote the procedures but never finalized them, and they expired in 2005.

In 2005, New Jersey lawmakers voted to suspend executions while a study commission examined the fairness and expense of the state’s death penalty. Governor Richard Codey signed the bill on January 12, 2006.

In 2007, a bill to replace the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole passed the state Senate and General Assembly and was signed by the governor.

New Jersey was the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty since 1965.

Other Interesting Facts

The first electric chair was invented by Harold P. Brown and Arthur Kennelly at Thomas Edison’s New Jersey laboratory in 1888.

No executions were carried out in New Jersey between reinstatement in 1982 and abolition in 2007.

New Jersey was the first state to impose a moratorium on executions through legislation.

In 2007, a bill to replace the death penal­ty with life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole passed the state Senate and General Assembly and was signed by the governor.
Long Pond Ironworks State Park. Photo by Hope Abrams.

Resources

  • Department of Corrections
  • New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
  • Public defender’s office
  • Victims’ services

View Information by State

Additional Information


  • Death Penalty: No
  • Number of Executions Since 1976: 0
  • Number of Executions Before 1976 (may include federal and military executions): 361
  • Current Death Row Population: 0
  • Women on Death Row: 0
  • Number of Innocent People Freed From Death Row: 0
  • Number of Clemencies Granted: 8
  • Date of Reinstatement (following Furman v. Georgia): August 6, 1982
  • Date of Abolition: December 17, 2007
  • Location of Death Row: Trenton
  • Capital: Trenton
  • Region: Northeast
  • Population: 9,288,994*
  • Murder Rate: 2.95
  • Is Life Without Parole an Option?: Yes
  • Can a defendant get death for a felony in which s/he was not responsible for the murder?: No
  • Method of Execution: N/A
  • Clemency Process: Governor has sole authority to grant clemency
  • Governor: Phil Murphy

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