N Jersey to scrap death penalty

Byrnzie

Thursday, 13 December 2007, 23:01 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7143597.stm

N Jersey to scrap death penalty


Lawmakers in the US state of New Jersey have approved a bill abolishing the death penalty.

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

The bill is expected to be signed into law by Democratic Governor Jon Corzine - an opponent of the death penalty.

The move would make New Jersey the first US state to abolish capital punishment since the US Supreme Court reinstated executions in 1976.

Campaigners say they hope the vote in the New Jersey Assembly will encourage opponents of the death penalty elsewhere in the US.

Thirty-six of the 49 other states have the death penalty.

But fewer people were executed in America last year than at any time in over a decade.

The US Supreme Court is currently considering a legal challenge against the use of lethal injections.

Solat13

It's a nice gesture, but pointless in my opinion. The last person executed in New Jersey was in 1963. The U.S. Surpreme Court put a stop to the death penalty in all states in 1972, but then allowed individual states to reinstate it in 1976. New Jersey then reinstated the death penalty in 1982 but obviously no one has been executed and the state supreme court made a ruling in 2004 to put a stop to the death penalty. So all this bill did was abolish a policy that wasn't currently in existence and had not actually been in practice since 1963.

Byrnzie

Solat13 wrote:

It's a nice gesture, but pointless in my opinion. The last person executed in New Jersey was in 1963. The U.S. Surpreme Court put a stop to the death penalty in all states in 1972, but then allowed individual states to reinstate it in 1976. New Jersey then reinstated the death penalty in 1982 but obviously no one has been executed and the state supreme court made a ruling in 2004 to put a stop to the death penalty. So all this bill did was abolish a policy that wasn't currently in existence and had not actually been in practice since 1963.

'Campaigners say they hope the vote in the New Jersey Assembly will encourage opponents of the death penalty elsewhere in the US.'

Solat13

Byrnzie wrote:

'Campaigners say they hope the vote in the New Jersey Assembly will encourage opponents of the death penalty elsewhere in the US.'

I see that, but NJ is a notorious blue state - don't see how a vote there will have any effect on any of the red states where the majority of executions happen.