Mitigation

Panel Seeks End to Death Penalty for New Jersey

By LAURA MANSNERUS
Published: January 3, 2007
TRENTON, Jan. 2 � A legislative commission recommended on Tuesday that New Jersey become the first state to abolish the death penalty since states began reinstating their capital punishment laws 35 years ago. Its report found �no compelling evidence� that capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose, and increasing evidence that it �is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.�

The report, whose lone dissenter was the original author of the state�s modern death penalty statute, came a year after New Jersey joined Illinois and Maryland in imposing moratoriums on executions, and amid growing unease among politicians and the public about capital punishment.

Eight other states, including New York, have also suspended executions in recent years, most because of court decisions. Maryland had lifted its moratorium in 2003, after a year, but a court essentially reinstated it last month.

Death penalty experts said that New Jersey was the first state to receive an official recommendation that capital punishment be abandoned, and it lands in a state where legislators have a Democratic majority along with a Democratic governor who supports repeal of the statute.

The governor, Jon S. Corzine, embraced the report on Tuesday. �As someone who has long opposed the death penalty,� he said in a statement, �I look forward to working with the Legislature� to carry out the recommendations.

Questioning Capital Punishment
the Nation by BRUCE SHAPIRO
[posted online on December 24, 2006]

In the long, contentious history of capital punishment in America, there has never been a moment like this: Over just a few days in mid-December, judges in California and Maryland and the governor of Florida shut down any pending
executions in those states--all because of rapidly growing doubts about the humanity and constitutionality of lethal injection. In less than a week, 1,052 death-row inmates were thrust at least temporarily beyond reach of the
needle.

At first glance, the impact of each of these death penalty moratoria might seem limited. In Florida on December 16, Governor Jeb Bush suspended executions and set up a commission to study lethal-injection procedures, after the grotesque death of Angel Nieves three days earlier: The three-drug cocktail supposed to sedate Nieves and kill him painlessly and quickly instead left the inmate conscious, grimacing in pain and struggling for breath. It took half an hour and a second round of injections before the
spectacle ended.

In California, US District Judge Jeremy Fogel declared that state's execution protocols rife with irregularities In particular, Fogel raised serious questions about whether "certain inmates
have been conscious" when injected with heart-stopping drugs, suffering "unconscionable" pain and anguish.