TRENTON, N.J. (ABP) — Stating his firm opposition to what he called “state-endorsed killing,” New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) has signed into law a legislative ban on capital punishment — the nation's first in decades.
Shortly before he signed the bill in a public ceremony Dec. 17, he also commuted the sentences of the eight inmates who had been on the state's death row. They are now sentenced to life without possibility of parole. Those convicted in the future of New Jersey's most heinous crimes will receive the same sentence.
“I believe society must first determine if its endorsement of violence begets violence and if violence undermines our commitment to the sanctity of life,” Corzine said, according to a transcript of his remarks at the ceremony. “To these questions, I answer ‘Yes,' and therefore I believe we must evolve to ending that endorsement.”
Corzine, a longtime death-penalty opponent, is a member of Christ Church in Summit, N.J. The congregation is dually affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ.
New Jersey is the first state to enact a legislative ban on capital punishment since the Supreme Court reinstated states' ability to enforce death-penalty statutes in 1976. Leaders in the Democrat-dominated state legislature pushed the ban through a lame-duck session, but several Republicans voted for it as well.
The bill arose in response to a report by a special state commission chaired by a Baptist minister and other religious leaders, as well as crime victims. The report said New Jersey's capital-punishment system was inequitable and ineffective.
Polls show that a majority of New Jersey residents support the death penalty. However, a similar majority of the same respondents, in a separate question, said they prefer life without parole instead of death sentences for the worst criminals.
Several groups that oppose the death penalty said the state's move was the first solid evidence of popular unease with capital punishment.
“Lawmakers across the country are realizing that capital punishment is permanently flawed, and the public is increasingly wary of a system that holds the very real possibility of executing the innocent,” said a statement from Amnesty International. “By holding criminals accountable and eliminating the possibility of a horrific error with a one-two punch, New Jersey stands to embolden lawmakers who were as fearful of eliminating capital punishment as they were of keeping it. This is a harbinger of things to come.”
But some victims-rights' advocates in New Jersey said the move was a major miscarriage of justice.
“Justice should have been served,” said Sharon Hazard-Johnson, whose parents were murdered in 2001, according to the Associated Press. “I think we all know that justice has not been served. It is quite unbelievable.”
Brian Wakefield, who was convicted of the brutal murders of Hazard-Johnson's parents, was one of the criminals whose sentence Corzine commuted.
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