News Alert: New Jersey Ends Capital Punishment and Commutes All Death Sentences
From the New Jersey Law Journal December 17, 2007.
N.J. Ends Capital Punishment, Commutes All Death Sentences
Michael Booth
12-17-2007
A quarter-century after it was reinstated and without it ever being used, New Jersey's death penalty is repealed"
Gov. Jon Corzine on Monday signed legislation that eliminates capital punishment as a sentence and replaces it with life in prison without parole.
At the same time, he commuted the death sentences of the eight men presently on death row at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton to life without parole.
"These commutations, along with today’s bill signing, brings to a close in New Jersey the protracted moral and practical debate on the death penalty," Corzine said at the signing ceremony.
New Jersey thus becomes the first state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since 1965 and also the first since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized capital punishment in 1976.
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Death Penalty Information Center
Democracy Now: New Jersey Votes to Abolish Death Penalty
Commentary:
Comments
This isn't really a surprise, knowing what I know of New Jersey, this seems consistent with the state's politics. NJ is a far cry from Texas.
Posted by: NJ Guy | November 16, 2008 11:43 PM