DecommissionedFollowing the United States Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Gregg v. Georgia to reinstate the death penalty, and two attempts vetoed by Governor Brendan Byrne, his successor, Governor Thomas H. Kean, re-established New Jersey's death penalty in 1982. Over the intervening twenty-five years, through the process of judicial review and legislative amendment, New Jersey's machinery of death has developed into perhaps the most rigorous such process, from a jurisprudential perspective, in the nation, if not the world. In order to assess the penalty of death, a jury is required during a penalty phase, separate from the original trial, to determine that the defendant's actions displayed certain aggravating factors establishing the particularly heinous nature of the crime. The defendant is represented by no fewer than two attorneys, provided at taxpayer expense by the Office of the Public Defender. The appeals process is extensive, lasting decades and allowing the defendant direct access to the state Supreme Court; furthermore, a proportionality review, also to be conducted by the state Supreme Court, is required to ascertain whether or not the defendant's sentence was excessively disproportionate to those received by others committing similar crimes. All death row inmates are housed in a special wing of the New Jersey State Prison, where they are isolated from the general population. Should they be executed, the state has selected lethal injection as the sole instrument of their demise, wherein the condemned receives a barbituate cocktail intravenously until he or she asphyxiates and dies. Presently there are eight individuals on New Jersey's death row, two of whom have finally exhausted all of their appeals. No one has been executed under the present statute since its implementation.
Today, the New Jersey Senate voted 21-16 to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, positioning New Jersey to be the first state since the Gregg v. Georgia decision to voluntarily move to repeal capital punishment. The General Assembly will take a vote on the issue on Thursday, and Governor Jon S. Corzine, a vocal death penalty opponent, has promised to sign the legislation into law. Barring unforeseen circumstances, New Jersey's death penalty will soon be confined to the dustbin of history. Where it belongs.
New Jersey has striven vainly to have the best of both worlds: a death penalty that would sufficiently punish and deter murder, while at the same time ensuring the highest possible degree of judicial scrutiny, thereby minimizing the chances for an erroneous execution. To their credit, the legislature and the judiciary consistently privileged this latter objective over the former. Yet such rigorousness (absent in states such as Texas, which have actually instituted laws to "fast track" death penalty appeals) has had the twin results of ensuring that only a handful of murderers have made it onto our death row, and that they stay parked there for decades. With the prospect of execution therefore so remote as to be practically abstract, it is questionable whether or not New Jersey's death penalty serves either a legitimate punitive or deterrent function.
I have no compunction against punishing the guilty - and I believe in certain instances that death may be an appropriate punishment. However, I think this view is irreconcilable with the practical demands of a justice system that must place a premium on fairness and engender the utmost trust of the people of New Jersey as to its certitude and its morality. Our courts are human institutions, and as such, they are inevitably prone to error. It is unconscionable that we should recognize this essential and immutable truth, yet at the same time insist upon meting out punishments that are irrevocable. Taking the death penalty off of the books is not a sop to murderers, nor an admission of weakness, but a courageous affirmation of the legal precepts that underpin our democracy. In America, death and justice cannot be one in the same.
Today, the New Jersey Senate voted 21-16 to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, positioning New Jersey to be the first state since the Gregg v. Georgia decision to voluntarily move to repeal capital punishment. The General Assembly will take a vote on the issue on Thursday, and Governor Jon S. Corzine, a vocal death penalty opponent, has promised to sign the legislation into law. Barring unforeseen circumstances, New Jersey's death penalty will soon be confined to the dustbin of history. Where it belongs.
New Jersey has striven vainly to have the best of both worlds: a death penalty that would sufficiently punish and deter murder, while at the same time ensuring the highest possible degree of judicial scrutiny, thereby minimizing the chances for an erroneous execution. To their credit, the legislature and the judiciary consistently privileged this latter objective over the former. Yet such rigorousness (absent in states such as Texas, which have actually instituted laws to "fast track" death penalty appeals) has had the twin results of ensuring that only a handful of murderers have made it onto our death row, and that they stay parked there for decades. With the prospect of execution therefore so remote as to be practically abstract, it is questionable whether or not New Jersey's death penalty serves either a legitimate punitive or deterrent function.
I have no compunction against punishing the guilty - and I believe in certain instances that death may be an appropriate punishment. However, I think this view is irreconcilable with the practical demands of a justice system that must place a premium on fairness and engender the utmost trust of the people of New Jersey as to its certitude and its morality. Our courts are human institutions, and as such, they are inevitably prone to error. It is unconscionable that we should recognize this essential and immutable truth, yet at the same time insist upon meting out punishments that are irrevocable. Taking the death penalty off of the books is not a sop to murderers, nor an admission of weakness, but a courageous affirmation of the legal precepts that underpin our democracy. In America, death and justice cannot be one in the same.
