aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, December 17, 2007

1 down, 36 to go: NJ abolishes the death penalty

In a 44-36 vote last week, the Democrat-run New Jersey state assembly replaced the death sentence with life in prison without parole.

Gov. John Corzine is expected to sign the bill into law today.

On Saturday the NYTimes editorialized that it was a long time coming:

By clinging to the death penalty, states keep themselves in the company of countries like Iran, North Korea and China - a disreputable pantheon of human mistreatment. Small wonder the gyrations of New Jersey’s Legislature have been watched intently by human rights activists around the world.

Spurred in large part by the large and growing body of DNA-based exonerations, there is increasing national unease about the death penalty. The Supreme Court is poised to consider whether lethal injections that torture prisoners in the process of killing them amount to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment, an exercise bound to put fresh focus on some of the ugly details of implementing capital punishment.

SEE ALSO: Are you one of those who buy into the death penalty as deterrent argument? Then let’s test it!