Panel Seeks End to Death Penalty for New Jersey (& WI is considering

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/nyregion/03death.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print


Reinstating the death penality!!!!!!)

January 3, 2007
Panel Seeks End to Death Penalty for New Jersey
By LAURA MANSNERUS

TRENTON, Jan. 2 — A legislative commission recommended on Tuesday that New Jersey become the first state to abolish the death penalty since states began reinstating their capital punishment laws 35 years ago. Its report found “no compelling evidence” that capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose, and increasing evidence that it “is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.”

The report, whose lone dissenter was the original author of the state’s modern death penalty statute, came a year after New Jersey joined Illinois and Maryland in imposing moratoriums on executions, and amid growing unease among politicians and the public about capital punishment.

Eight other states, including New York, have also suspended executions in recent years, most because of court decisions. Maryland had lifted its moratorium in 2003, after a year, but a court essentially reinstated it last month.

Death penalty experts said that New Jersey was the first state to receive an official recommendation that capital punishment be abandoned, and it lands in a state where legislators have a Democratic majority along with a Democratic governor who supports repeal of the statute.

The governor, Jon S. Corzine, embraced the report on Tuesday. “As someone who has long opposed the death penalty,” he said in a statement, “I look forward to working with the Legislature” to carry out the recommendations.

[goddess40]

1. I don't think it will happen in WI

It's embarrassing enough that Sensenbrenner is from here.

[54anickel]

2. I hope you are correct, but those referendum results in the once great

progressive state of WI have me a bit concerned. There are some rabid right-wingers migrating to this state.

[goddess40]

3. The republican's lost the assembly

and both Gard and Green are gone from elected positions in the state - I'm banking on the change that is going to start in this country tomorrow to pull us out of the tailspin the republicans have put us in for the last six years.

[54anickel]

6. Very true. I sometimes get dismayed living in a SE WI bastion of repukes

I tend to forget that the rest of the state is in much better shape.

[struggle4progress]

5. "...'It’s not going to go anywhere, Lasee said..."

Concealed carry, DNA backlogs big issues for Wis. Legislature
Published - Tuesday, January 02, 2007
By TODD RICHMOND / The Associated Press

... Voters in November approved a Republican-authored advisory referendum to reinstate the ultimate punishment, abolished in Wisconsin in 1853. Its chief proponent, Sen. Alan Lasee, R-DePere, said he’ll introduce it as legislation this session.

But voters also handed Senate control to Democrats in the same election. That means the Republican measure is unlikely to pass that house ...

“It’s not going to go anywhere,” Lasee said ...

http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2007/01/02/wi/wis5.txt

[itsmesgd]

4. end the death penalty, make the bastard's suffer

Death is the easy way out. Make these evil people spend their lives in a 6x8 foot cell for the rest of their life. Plus, if they can later prove that they were innocent, they can go home. I have studied the death penalty and have a degree in criminal justice. I know of what I speak. The death penalty system has been troubled in every state in which it is employed. Plus from a "cheap bastard" perspective, it's cheaper to let them sit in a cell than to kill them. That's right, it is cheaper to let them set than is is to file all of the mandatory appeals that accompany the death penalty.

As a side note, let's look at the other countries that execute people. It reads like a who's who of draconian, savage states. We look like dumb, evil morons by being in this club. Most of the "civilized" world no longer executes people. Can we join the civilized world and leave the ranks of China, Saudi Arabia, and other cruel regimes?

[Dean Martin]

7. I USED to be for it, but no more

I used to be for the death penalty, but no longer. I agree with you. Let them sit in a cell and suffer for years and years. But, unless there is evidence that they are innocent somewhere along the way, DO NOT EVER EVER GIVE THEM PAROLE for rape, child molesting, or murder!

[brentspeak]

8. I disagree. There are crimes for which capital punishment is warranted.