death penalty – Page 4

Death penalty politics in the 14th

This post from Wally Edge offers some pretty interesting speculation on whether the Democrats might want to shield Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein from having her committee review a death penalty repeal bill. The notion is that the Democratic leadership would move the legislation to a different committee to spare her having to take a high-profile stance on a difficult issue in a district that includes Hamilton (considered a bulwark of death-penalty support) — and to keep from angering death penalty abolitionists.

Supporters of ending the death penalty are worried that Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein’s tenuous hold on her own competitive legislative district — past polling has shown support for the death penalty, especially in blue-collar Hamilton Township — and her fear of tough stands, might make her less likely to support their cause.

Amazing what an issue-based story can do for the political process (yes, I am patting the Post on the back).

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More doubts on the death penalty

The Star-Ledger comments today on the case of Byron Halsey, who had his double-murder conviction overturned earlier this thanks to DNA evidence tying the crime to someone else — someone who had testified against him during the 1988 trial.

The Ledger correctly notes that

The case is cause for grave concern about police interrogation tactics, lie detector tests, confessions and the overall well-being of the justice system.

The Halsey case is another in a long line of cases in which seemingly incontrovertable evidence — in this case a confession — proves not to be so incontrovertable, after all, the confession apprently coming after a long, difficult interrogation.

That confessions aren’t always what they appear to be is yet another lesson. To many, it seems almost incomprehensible that suspects would confess to crimes they didn’t commit, but criminologists say false confessions are not as rare as some believe.

Halsey’s lawyers had argued that the length and circumstances surrounding his interrogation made his statements unreliable.

It’s a lesson that the federal government should take to heart as it attempts to justify its torture program at Guantanamo and one that should be factored into the debate over the death penalty here in New Jersey.

One of the striking things about this case is that the crimes committed are exactly the kinds of crimes that those who support the death penalty regularly point to as a reason to preserve capital punishment. Halsey was sentenced to life in prison — the death penalty was sought by prosecutors because the murder victims were children and apparently raped, but the jury opted not to impose it.

Consider the candidates for state Senate and Assembly from the 14th District. Four of them — the three Republicans, Assemblyman Bill Baroni, who is running for state Senate, and Assembly candidates Adam Bushman and Tom Goodwin, along with Democratic Assembly candidate Wayne D’Angelo — express doubts about the death penalty, but believed it should be retained for cases of terrorism, child murder and the killing of prosecutors, police or witnesses in criminal cases.

“Can you imagine if a convicted terrorist were allowed to stay alive, letting him continue to rally and support his cause?” (Mr. Bushman) said.

Then again, wouldn’t putting a terrorist to death turn him into a martyr? That, however, is a side issue. The question here is whether we can eliminate doubt from the process, whether we can ever be completely certain of the guilt of the men and women being sentenced to death.

There are other issues surrounding capital punishment — moral and ethical concerns, its effectiveness as a deterrent, etc. — but the question of guilt or innocence and our inability to ever be 100 percent sure seems paramount (and tied back to the moral and ethical issues).

Human nature being what it is, there is no way to ensure that we are not sentencing an innocent man or woman to death. That being the case, how can we not abolish capital punishment?

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Three more for our side

Three more major newspapers have turned against capital punishment, more evidence that “evolving standards of decency” are moving us in the right direction. Time to pull the plug on the death penalty.

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Mixed decisions

Buried in Monday’s state Supreme Court decision upholding the death sentence of 29-year-old Brian Wakefield, who was convicted of the 2001 home invasion and beating deaths of Richard and Shirley Hazard in Atlantic County contained a kernel of hope for opponents of the death penalty.

The court ruled that the Wakefield trial and sentencing met all of the criteria under New Jersey law, that it was fair, the death sentence was properly imposed, and his death sentence is not disproportionate.

Justice Virginia Long, in a dissent, offered a concise rebuke not only to the courts immediate decision, but to the ethical underpinnings of the courts willingness to continue endorsing the death penalty. She said the state court in the 1980s relied on evolving standards of decency to uphold that ultimate sanction and that a changing moral climate required the state to reconsider its commitment to the death penalty.

Justice Long’s view of the death penalty is consistent with the recommendations made in a report issued by a state panel that had been charged with reviewing the state’s capital punishment statute.

The key finding of the report, issued in January, was that the the death penalty was inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in New Jersey and elsewhere in the country. The report also found that there is no evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent or “rationally serves a legitimate penological intent”; that there remains too much risk that felons who commit similar crimes will face different sentences or that the innocent will be executed; that it is more expensive than life in prison without parole; and there are better alternatives, including life imprison without parole.

Unfortunately, the court may not have the authority to follow Justice Long’s lead — Justice Roberto A. Rivera-Soto, writing for the majority, cited a 1992 constitutional amendment explicitly stating that the death penalty is not cruel or unusual punishment to explain why he believed the court did not have the constitutional authority to strike down the capital punishment statute.

But that does not mean the death penalty cannot be overturned by the state Legislature. With Thursday’s Senate hearing coming up, I am hoping that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee read Justice Long’s dissent and take it to heart.

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A capital idea

The state Senate is scheduled to consider a bill on Thursday that would abolish the death penalty in New Jersey. According toa story in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The proposed legislation, scheduled to go before the committee on Thursday, would repeal the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole. Current death-row inmates would be resentenced to life imprisonment without parole in a maximum security prison.

It seems a sensible approach and should address some of the legitimate concerns raised by Assemblyman Bill Baroni (a Republican who represents South Brunswick, Cranbury, Jamesburg and Monroe). Mr. Baroni told me last month that poorly constructed legislation could open the door for death-row inamtes to appeal and potentially overturn their sentences because there would be no mechanism to commute them.

In case anyone is interested, here are my five reasons to oppose the death penalty:

1. Murder is murder no matter who pulls the trigger or sticks in the needle. When the state murders in a democracy, it does so with our implied consent making us complicit in the act. The death penalty, therefore, makes all of us murderers.

2. Premeditiated murder, according to Camus, is especially heinous; capital punishment is really just state-sanctioned, premeditated murder and vigilantism.

3. Death is permanent. There is no system that can be put in place that can safeguard against human error or bias, meaning that there always will remain a chance that the innocent will be put to death.

4. There is no system that can be put in place that can safeguard against human error or bias, meaning that there always will remain a chance that issues of race, class and gender will influence who gets sent to death and who faces life in prison.

5. It not about deterence, but about retaliation and retribution. — something that should be out of character for a civilized, democratic society. Just listen to supporters who consistently stoke fear and speak of it as “the ultimate punishment”; no one talks about the death penalty as a way to prevent crime and, if they did, there have been far too many studies offering evidence to the contrary.

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