What do law enforcement officers, prosecutors, crime victims' advocates and both Democratic and Republican state legislators have in common?
Recently, all of these groups came together in New Jersey to support legislation to repeal that state's death penalty. The legislation was signed into law last week by Gov. Jon Corzine, and New Jersey became the first state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since Iowa and West Virginia did so way back in 1965.
The fact that New Jersey acted as it did may surprise anyone not familiar with the growing national discussion over capital punishment. But for those who are familiar with this discussion, the surprise is not that New Jersey acted as it did — but rather why other states such as Texas have not taken similar steps toward repeal.
The overwhelming and bipartisan vote to repeal New Jersey's death penalty did not happen overnight — far from it. And it will not happen overnight in Texas.
In the end, it came after study, discussion and deliberation — and after hundreds and hundreds of hours of testimony from police, prosecutors, murder victims' family members and others.
In New Jersey, a special commission was appointed to thoroughly study the pros and cons of the death penalty — and to recommend what measures could be taken to fix the state's death penalty statutes. The commission was made up of victims' rights advocates, county prosecutors and other members of law enforcement, a retired New Jersey Supreme Court justice and many others.
The study found that there was no "fix" for the death penalty. It found that it is a deeply flawed public policy and, in the words of one state senator who in 1982 voted to reinstate the death penalty in New Jersey, it is a "false and ineffective choice for taxpayers and residents who have lost loved ones. It has for too long been sustained by mythology and fiction, propped up by outdated rhetoric when courage and common sense would have served us better."
The commission further found that the death penalty squanders millions in tax dollars, does not serve a legitimate purpose such as crime deterrence, delays healing for the loved ones of murder victims and, despite many safeguards, carries no guarantee against what would be our worst nightmare — the execution of an innocent person.
New Jersey is hardly the first state to begin to rethink the nation's experiment with capital punishment. Illinois and Maryland have had moratoriums. California, North Carolina and Tennessee have had study commissions. All the while, death sentences are down sharply and executions have decreased since reaching a crescendo in the late 1990s.
In 2007, the state of Texas carried out 26 executions, accounting for 62 percent of the executions that took place in the United States this year. The executions in Texas occurred at a time when nearly a dozen other states had instituted a moratorium or were considering issues related to the administration of lethal injection. From Jan. 10 to April 23, Texas was the only executing state in the country. Texas now has executed a total of 405 people since 1982 (of 1,099 executions nationwide since1977).
According to data available from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Office of Court Administration, 15 men were sentenced to death in Texas in 2007 (as of Dec. 14). Over the past five years, the number of new death sentences in Texas has declined by approximately 50 percent, which mirrors national trends.
In Texas and across the nation, the death penalty is under increased scrutiny and the result is that the public is beginning to arrive at an inevitable conclusion: Capital punishment is a fundamentally flawed public policy that is collapsing under the weight of its many blunders, biases and bureaucracies.
Blunders? 125 people have been freed from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged.
Biases? Try as we might, we have yet to find a way to fairly decide who gets death and who doesn't and at the end of the day who is actually executed.
Bureaucracies? In New Jersey, $253 million has been spent on capital punishment, 60 people have been sentenced to death, 52 death sentences have been reversed and not one person has been executed.
Across the nation, many of the 3,300 people on death rows have sat there for decades.
In New Jersey, regardless of their initial views on capital punishment, a panel of experts and a bipartisan group of lawmakers determined that the system is beyond repair. When will Texas reach the same inevitable conclusion?
Rust-Tierney is the executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Halperin is the president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and a professor of Human Rights at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Follow New Jersey, repeal death penalty
Thursday, December 13, 2007
New Jersey Assembly abolishes the death penalty
*Blue Jersey Update* The vote just took place and it was 43-36 in favor of abolishing the Death Penalty in NJ. The bill now heads to the Governor's desk where he has already said he intends to sign it.
New Jersey Assembly votes to abolish the death penalty
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
New Jersey Votes On Death Penalty Ban
Kira Hauser,
Registered Nurse
"That's good, but I'd still rather kill people in New York."
Ed Dolby,
Vending Machine Reapairman
"Hey, I'm all for the decision, just as long as New Jersey doesn't get rid of the slow, torturous death of a regular prison sentence."
George Dean,
Systems Analyst
"They haven't executed anybody in 44 years. Shouldn't they at least try it before abolishing it all together?"
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Weekly roundup
The state of New Jersey will be voting in the coming weeks to abolish the death penalty and we are expecting it to pass. I know this because last Friday the New Jersey Assembly speaker, Joe Roberts held a press conference with Sister Helen Prejean announcing his support of the bill. If you happen to watch too much C-Span and news as I do, you'll know that the Speaker never holds a press conference on an issue unless he is sure that he has enough votes to get the bill passed (video here).
Karl Keys of Capital Defense Weekly has more details about the situation in New Jersey.
Austin American-Statesman has a story about changes to the Sharon Keller lawsuit by wife of Michael Richard.
"I also want the jury to be able to walk into the Court of Criminal Appeals and see where that phone call came in," Kallinen said. He said the change also allowed him to beef up portions of the suit dealing with judicial immunity, the lawsuit's highest hurdle. Judges are immune from lawsuits dealing with their judicial actions, but can under limited conditions be sued over administrative decisions.
Kallinen said he withdrew the lawsuit Thursday and mailed the new version to the Austin federal court, where he anticipates it will be filed Tuesday.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a front page article in their Sunday's paper regarding the case of Troy David. News Week has an article titled, "Injection of Reflection" that discusses the lethal injection debate and the diminishing support for the Death Penalty among those who are involved in the process, such as juries, Judges, wardens, and state governors.
The new reluctance to punish by killing is part of a historical trend. There was a time when death and torture were spectator sports, when crowds flocked to see prisoners drawn and quartered or beheaded. In some parts of the world, flogging and stoning are still public spectacles. But in the 19th century, supposedly "enlightened" states began looking for more-humane ways to serve final justice—to kill people without causing too much suffering to either the victims or their executioners. The authorities tried hanging, firing squads, electrocutions, gas chambers and, more recently, lethal injection. Each method was supposed to be an improvement over the last...Tyler Morning Telegraph has a story about a presentation by Dr. William Girard of University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston about lethal injections.Jurors and prosecutors are steering away from the death penalty because they are both more and less afraid: more apprehensive about killing the innocent and less fearful of crime. Over the past decade, the use of DNA testing on wrongly convicted criminals has overturned prison sentences for at least 200 inmates nationwide (about 15 of them sentenced to death). In 2000, Illinois declared a moratorium on executions after 13 death-row inmates were exonerated. Back in the '80s, when violent crime was surging along with crack-cocaine addiction in cities, Americans demanded retributive justice. But as crime rates fell in the '90s and the first few years of the new century, jurors became more lenient in capital cases.
At the same time, prosecutors began to be wary of seeking the death penalty. A series of court decisions required that more states provide competent lawyers for the criminally accused in death-penalty cases. Better defense lawyers could stall and maneuver, running up the cost to the state of bringing a capital case. The more-clever lawyers have been especially good at introducing "mitigating circumstances" into these cases, arguing that the abuse suffered by the killer as a child helps to explain the horrible crime he or she committed. Since 1982, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective, a think tank, the state has spent more than $250 million on the death penalty, or about $11 million a year—without executing a single prisoner. With legal costs soaring in death cases, states are finding it cheaper to pay for lifetime prison sentences.
“There are many instances … difficulty finding a vein, equipment failing, choking and heaving, the needle becoming lodged, or is pointed in the wrong direction,” Girard said, “definitely (allowing for) the possibility of agony or suffocation during a period of time before death.”
In May, prison officials in Ohio stuck Christopher Newton at least 10 times with needles, delaying his execution more than an hour, as they struggled to place shunts in his arms to administer the fatal doses.
While lethal injection protocol varies by state, the American Veterinary Medicine Association issues and frequently updates a 39-page guideline for euthanasia.
The most encouraged form of euthanasia involves one ingredient: a long-acting anesthetic called sodium pentobarbital.
The animal is given a high dose which pushes them past loss of consciousness into apnea and then into cardiac arrest.
Using an anesthetic assures vets that the animal is completely asleep when its heart stops.
But, lethal injections used on inmates contain a short-acting anesthetic called thiopental, Girard said.
And unlike lethal injections, vet guidelines discourage the use of a paralyzing agent, saying it could lead to death by asphyxiation which isn’t even appropriate once an animal is unconscious.
“I concluded that the paralyzing agent is used in lethal injection for the benefit of the viewers, to keep the inmate from squirming if the anesthesia isn’t adequate,” Girard said.