New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak has posted, "Why Abolition of the Death Penalty Was Important," at NJ.com. It's the text of his speech today at Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice.
I've just listed three good reasons for abolishing the death penalty.
But there is one more. One that has the least impact on politicians, but the greatest impact on our society - governments should not have the power to pass ultimate judgment and decide who should live and who should die.
During the 25 plus years of having a death penalty statute in New Jersey, over 16,000 murders were committed and 60 murderers were sentenced to death. Why those 60 and not the 15,000 plus others? There's no reasoned answer to that question, other than some of us hold on to the need for revenge. And some of us have a need to score political points in the process.
As long as governments, and its political leaders, promote revenge as a response to murder, or any wrongdoing, we will be sending the wrong message - a message that gives the government's stamp of approval to acting out of the need for revenge - a message that conflicts with the teachings of all of our faith based institutions.
Political leadership needs spiritual guidance. It can be a politician's strongest ally. It certainly was mine on the road to abolish the death penalty in New Jersey.
How would I summarize the death penalty? It is a risky, arbitrary, complicated, morally bankrupt, resource-draining boondoggle of a system that contributes nothing to public safety, causes more delays in resolution and more pain for the survivors, more costs for the taxpayers, and more stress on law enforcement budgets.
I rest my case.
More from Senator Lesniak is here. Coverage of Lesniak's book, The Road to Abolition: How New Jersey Abolished Its Death Penalty, is in this post.
Today's Lorain Morning Journal in Ohio carries the editorial, "Empty life in prison tougher, better penalty than lethal injection." It references yesterday's execution of Richard Cooey, noted in this post.
A creep to the end, Cooey could be a poster boy for the cause of Ohio moving forward with more executions. He made it too easy for all who would wish him and other condemned convicts dead. That is Cooey's final toxic effect on those who remain alive today.
State-sanctioned execution of a human being, even one as wretched as Cooey, only diminishes each of us and denies the sanctity of human life. Life is the fundamental right that no person, or society, has the right to take away.
Liberty is the next-most basic right, but it resides on a lower step where it is properly within the grasp of society to withhold as punishment for the Richard Cooeys who kill.
Considering his unspeakable crimes, execution let Cooey off too easily and quickly. It would be preferable to see his kind locked away permanently, deprived of liberty and everything but life itself. Surely a lifetime spent in such a dark tunnel of days without end is a better, tougher, punishment than a swift painless death by injection.
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