Tag: death penalty

The state Senate Budget Committee has sent legislation to the full Senate that would abolish the death penalty. A vote is likely in both houses next week and legislation could go to the governor before Christmas.

Let’s hope the Legislature adopts this bill and that New Jersey’s action can spur other states to abandon our foolish societal obsession with hard justice.

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The Blog of South Brunswick

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Quote of the day from The Record’s editorial on the announcement that the Legislature will be voting before the end of the year on a bill that, should it pass as expected, would abolish the death penalty:

For a national moral example, New Jersey is an unusual suspect. But it’s fitting that a state known for its governmental shortcomings could be the first to recognize the appropriate limits of its power.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts and Assembly Speaker Pro-Tempore Wilfredo Caraballo are ready to do the right thing. The pair announced today — at a press conference featuring Sister Helen Prejean, the anti-death penalty activist — that they plan to push for a vote on a bill that would remove the death penalty from the statute books.

Roberts, in a press release, said the bipartisan bill sponsored by Caraballo (D-Essex) would go before the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Dec. 6 “so that it could be positioned for an Assembly floor vote on Dec. 13.” The governor already is on record as supporting a repeal.

A similar measure, which also would commute the sentences of the eight men on death row to live in prison without parole — has been approved by a Senate committee.

Roberts and Caraballo say the legislation would make the state the first to end the death penalty by legislative means, making the state a leader in the push for a more humane approach to criminal justice.

Judging public opinion on the issue is difficult because polling results too often depend on how the question is framed — what alternatives are offered in the poll, for instance, or whether the question is tied to a hypothetical crime. My sense is that both support and opposition — aside from the hardcores like me — are rather soft, that a large percentage of people could be swayed in either direction on any given day.

I’ve written about the death penalty more times than I care to imagine — most recently following the release of an American Bar Association’s report detailing the significant flaws in death penalty statutes around the nation. My position is pretty clear: State-sanctioned, premidiated killing is ethically and morally wrong; the death penalty is not a deterrent; and it is impossible to create enough procedural safeguards to guarantee that we do not send the innocent to death.

One way of looking at the issue is to consider the manner in which we execute the condemned. We have gone out of our way to find methods designed primarily to assuage our guilt, to mollify us, to hide the hideous nature of executions so that we can go on with our merry lives. We want it both ways: we want the condemned to die, but we want them to retain their humanity — and we don’t want to have to pay attention.

I don’t like hypotheticals, but imagine what might happen were executions to be made public events — as there were in the bygone era. How might the public react? Would the same level of support for capital punishment exist? Would there be a general revulsion?

Death penalty supporters dismiss this line of reasoning — though they are famous for engaging in the same kind of emotional logic. Remember Michael Dukakis’ reponse when asked if he would favor an “irrevocable death penalty” for someone who raped and killed his wife? His answer was technocratic — very cool and overly wonkish. It wasn’t a fair question, of course. But it does fairly sum up the emotional nature of the debate — and demonstrates the minefield that discussion of the death penalty can be for politicians.

That’s why it is no accident that Roberts and Caraallo waited until today to unveil their plan. Maybe a December hearing will allow the debate to rise above emotional arguments. I am hopeful that will be the case, but not expecting it.

In the end, however, the only thing that matters is shutting down the machinery of death.

See Blue Jersey for video of the morning press conference.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.