New Jersey Lawmakers Set to Vote on Death Penalty Ban
This week, lawmakers in New Jersey will be voting on whether or not to abolish the death penalty in the state, which could change the sentence for the state's most serious crimes to life without parole.
If approved - and many suggest that it's likely - it would make New Jersey the first state to abolish capital punishment since it was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976.
Currently, New Jersey has eight people on death row, though no one has been executed there since 1963.
The sponsor of the state Senate bill, Democrat Ray Lesniak, predicted that both houses of the state Congress will pass the bill, and Governor Jon Corzine has already promised to sign it into law when it passes his desk.
The opposing lawmakers, headed by Republican minority leader Alex DeCroce, protest that the measure has not received proper debate, and that Democrats were pushing the bill through too hastily.
The Congress-majority Democrats are following the January recommendation of a legislative commission to abolish the death penalty, based on their opinion that from the evidence available, it did not successfully deter the most serious crimes.
At the current time, 37 states and the federal government have approved the death penalty, but the actual number of executions has dropped significantly in recent years. Data from the Death Penalty Information Center suggests that the number of death sentences imposed fell by 60 percent from 1999 to 2006, while the number of executions dropped by 40 percent over the same period.
In 2006, 53 death row inmates were executed - the lowest total for the US in 10 years - and the total number estimated to be executed this year is 42.
Even now, executions have been halted due to a moratorium from the Supreme Court while they make a decision on the constitutionality of lethal injections, which may be cruel and unusual punishment. That decision is scheduled to be made in the middle of next year.
Legislators, criminal defense attorneys and other advocates for the ban are hoping that if New Jersey takes the step to enact a ban, that it will pave the way for other states to follow suit.