Reason for Pride in Jersey

That's the title of an editorial in today's Newark Star-Ledger.  LINK

Criticizing the Legislature is something of a civic sport in New Jersey. It's not hard to find an issue that lawmakers have botched or ignored. Most of the time, the carping is well deserved. But every now and then, they get something right.

So it was with abolition of the death penalty a year ago today. New Jersey remains the only state to have repealed the death penalty by legislative means -- a distinction worth boasting about. Others have eliminated capital punishment but only after the courts ordered them to do so.

Our opposition to the death penalty has been unwavering for decades. Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court found capital punishment laws in three Southern states to be constitutional, New Jersey lawmakers sought to reinstate the death penalty here. In 1982, they succeeded. We objected, pointing out the moral as well as legal problems with having the state decide who deserved to be executed.

Those concerns have remained. Proponents of capital punishment have never made a convincing case.

The main argument of death penalty advocates was the law's deterrent effect. But the figures don't bear that out. Since 1976, nearly 1,200 inmates have been put to death. Another 3,300 are living on death rows. Not much of a deterrent.

Texas has used the death penalty far more than any other state, executing 405 inmates. But another 370 prisoners await execution. Oklahoma has executed 86, and 82 are on death row. In Alabama, the number executed is 38, with 201 facing the same fate.

One correction; Texas has actually executed 423 men and women since 1982.  Earlier coverage of New Jersey's abolition of capital punishment is here.