Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:

Search

New Jersey OKs death penalty moratorium

AP, via the Columbia Daily Tribune, USA
Jan. 13, 2006
www.columbiatribune.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Saturday January 14, 2006

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey lawmakers voted Monday to suspend executions while a task force studies the fairness and costs of imposing the death penalty.

The measure now heads to Gov. Richard Codey, who has indicated he will sign it before leaving office on Tuesday.

Under the measure, a 13-member commission would have until November to report on whether the death penalty is fairly imposed and whether alternatives would ensure public safety and address the needs of victims’ families.

New Jersey would become the third state behind Illinois and Maryland to suspend executions, but the first to do so through legislation. The others were done by executive order. Maryland has since lifted its suspension.

There are 10 prisoners on New Jersey’s death row. While capital punishment was reinstated in the state in 1982, the last execution took place in 1963.

The Assembly passed the measure Monday, 55-21, with two abstentions. The Senate approved it 30-6 last month.

“By its action today, the Assembly joins the Senate in signaling deep concern that the state’s death penalty system isn’t working,” said Celeste Fitzgerald, director of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. She said capital punishment is meted out unfairly and risks executing the innocent.

Sharon Hazard Johnson, whose parents were murdered in their home, accused lawmakers of “slowly murdering me and my siblings.” She said capital punishment is justified “when it fits the crime.”

The bill had bipartisan legislative support.

Death Penalty

100+ innocent people have been rescued from America’s death rows

America’s severely flawed ‘justice system’ has a lengthy record of wrongful convictions.

Amnesty International USA’s campaign against the death penalty

Human Rights Watch’s campaign against the death penalty

Science verses the death penalty, by the editors of Scientific American

What would Jesus do on death row?

Research resources on the death penalty

Joseph Roberts, a Democrat who is set to become Assembly speaker on Tuesday, said the bill is overdue.

“The injustice of the current system, and the steep price tag of it as well, means we ought to take a look at it,” Roberts said.

“In New Jersey, there has been a sea change in how people view the death penalty,” said Sen. Diane Allen, a Republican who voted for the moratorium.

“We’ve heard about people who have been put to death and were then found to be innocent. We’ve looked at the cost, which is enormously more for someone on death row than for a person who’s imprisoned for life without parole,” Allen said.

New Jersey lawmakers are not alone in considering a study of executions. Concerned about wrongful convictions and whether the poor and minorities are more likely to receive the death penalty, at least 12 other states have appointed study commissions.