New Jersey’s Death Penalty is Dead.
The legislature in New Jersey could barely wait until the election was over in November to set the wheels in motion to do away with the death penalty in New Jersey. It didn’t take them long to get it done. The state senate today abolished the death penalty and Governor Corzine promises to sign the bill into law next week.
Well, alrighty then.
It is not surprising that this legislative missile was kept in its silo until after the election, because none of the creeps running for office wanted to take a public position on an issue that is so controversial and so divides the electorate.
It turns out that, when someone got around to actually asking the people of New Jersey what they thought about the matter, the voters of New Jersey are divided on the issue, but not all that much.
A Quinnipiac University poll found that by a margin of 53 to 39%, New Jersey voters opposed eliminating the death penalty. But, when asked whether they preferred a life sentence without the possibility of parole over the death penalty for first degree murderers they split 52 to 39%, with 52% preferring the life sentence. Most interesting, however, is that 78% of those polled wanted the death penalty kept for extremely violent offenders such as f serial killers and child killers.
One thing that is clear about these results is that they don’t support the legislature’s lightening fast abolition of the death penalty in all cases. What they do support is all-too-often demonstrations of the unbridled arrogance, bordering on contempt, that the legislature has for the citizens of New Jersey.
The abolition of the death penalty means that one of the people who no longer has to worry about being put to death is Jesse K. Timmendequas,
Remember him?
He’s the waste of oxygen, convicted sex offender who raped and murdered seven-year old Megan Kanka, which led to the passage of Megan’s Law in New Jersey and similar laws in other states.
Timmendequas lived with two other convicted sex offenders across the street from his victim [seven-year old Megan Kanka]. He lured the girl into his house by offering to show her a puppy. After raping her, he slammed her head onto a dresser, put two plastic bags over her head, and strangled her to death with a belt. He moved her body to his truck, assaulting her once again before placing her in a wooden toy chest and dumping it in nearby Mercer County Park.
I think there is room for reasonable debate about the application of the death penalty, particularly in light of the importance of DNA evidence, which has been used to exonerate innocent offenders (and convict the guilty – except for O.J.). But, that leaves plenty of room to argue that pieces of shit like Jesse Timmendequas should have been put to death years ago. Instead, he’ll get to live, have three squares per day, use the prison library, write appeals, watch TV, perhaps write a book, and maybe even like that other animal, “Tookie†Williams, he’ll become a celebrity fave.
Meanwhile, Megan Kanka is still dead.
Hat tip to The Idiom for reminding me about the animal, Jesse Timmendequas.
What was the reason they gave for repealing the death penalty? It’s for the children? No, that can’t be it.
Comment by Enlighten-NewJersey — December 14, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
I’m just glad I moved out of New Jersey, but I can’t say the state I now live in (PA) is any better when it comes to executing those who should have been fried YEARS ago – case in point: Wesley Cook, aka Mumia Abu Jamal, who murdered Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
I’m thinking maybe I should move to Texas. 😉
Comment by kate — December 14, 2007 @ 11:13 pm
Farookin’ unbelievable! Jimbo, move to Colorado…where the air is pure and the skiing is sweet!
Comment by Lee — December 15, 2007 @ 4:53 am
There you go Jimbo. Whenever I ponder the death penalty, it always comes down that simple question of equity: Meagan’s dead and her killer is alive–how can that be fair?
Thank God for some common sense here in Texas. As comedian Ron White said “While other states were abolishing the death penalty, we put in an express lane.”
Comment by mike anderson — December 15, 2007 @ 8:22 am
So we are going easier on the worst dregs of society, while simultaneously passing ever more draconian “gun control” laws designed to prevent the law-abiding citizen from protecting themselves from said dregs.
Logic only a liberal can love. How long until we become the East Coast version of California, a third-world state full of illegal immigrants (due to “sanctuary policies”), rolling blackouts (due to restrictive energy policies), roving gangs (see liberal justice, above) and completely financially insolvent?
Remember the flick “Escape from New York”? That’s what New Jersey is gonna look like with a few more years of Corzine/Democratic “leadership…”
Sorry about the rant; your post just made my head explode!
Comment by Jersey — December 15, 2007 @ 9:28 am
I wish NJ would consider some more urgent matters. I am happy the death penalty is abolished. However since there was no one executed since 1963, I am questioning how urgent was this decision.
Currently a girl of any age can get an abortion and parents need not to be notified of the fact. In last 13 years about 20,000 abortion took place on the 20th week of gestation or later.
Death penalty is not going to bring Megan back.
Comment by Vlad — December 15, 2007 @ 10:52 am
Glad I live in Texas, we shoot the scum while they’re committing the crime.
Comment by old duffy — December 15, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
Pardon my ignorance on these matters, but I find it especially backwards that a state, which has taken top slots in the “Most Unsafe Cities in America,” would abolish capital punishment, when it is run amok with capital crimes.
The execution-style murder in that Newark schoolyard a few months back of three teenagers comes to mind. So much for the parents of those teenagers ever seeing justice. That they were illegal immigrants who committed the crime, and are being embraced and protected by the state government, is an entirely different blogpost, I’m sure.
If you ever do decide to descend upon Trenton, baseball bat in hand, please extend a sucker-punch or two from me.
Comment by Erica — December 15, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Half of the sonofabitches don’t even make it to trial thanks to the laws we have in Texas. Come to think of it, a few of those fellers didn’t even make it out of the garage down in Houston.
Comment by Dick — December 15, 2007 @ 6:28 pm
Perhaps, in the Timmendequas case, it will work out for the best. I mean, if he’s thrown in the general prison population. I understand child molesters are not particularly well treated by the other prisoners. Perhaps Mr. Timmendequas will get to play Megan’s part in a prison play. Over and over and over again, until some merciful guard smuggles in a belt and a plastic bag — – — – —
Comment by Charlie — December 15, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
If your local assholes are as stupid and weepy-eyed as our local bleeding hearts are in Cleveland (and I’ll bet they are) just wall the place off, arm everybody and wait for ’em to kill each other. It’s better than putting the police in harms way.
Comment by Cappy — December 15, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
Aside from the missing and, to me, all-important “retributional” element of punishment theory, in place for survivors’ families if not society as a whole —
The life-in-prison thing always reminds me of the lifetime’s worth of “free” dental and medical these (now) life-imprisonees will be getting . . . and all of it paid for by you hard-working, taxpaying, non-criminal members of the public, MOST of whom, if we are to believe the headlines and politicians, have NO health insurance at all and will die sooner than the life-imprisonee as a direct result of that.
I, like Erica, though, am very ignorant on these matters.
Comment by dogette — December 16, 2007 @ 6:24 am
yep and he’ll be doing it on your tax dollars
Comment by GUYK — December 16, 2007 @ 8:30 pm
I see pictures of little sweethearts like Megan and it just guts me. If that poor little thing had to leave this world in such a heinous way, shouldn’t he?
Comment by Sugar Britches — December 17, 2007 @ 10:09 pm
Even in Texas, killers have an under 1% chance of getting executed. The rest (those who get caught) get either that lifetime of free dental care you complain about, or else end up on parole.
In reality, theoretical severity (a phrase that I would argue applies to the capital punishment policy of every state in the US) acts as a cover for actual leniency.
Comment by John Spragge — December 23, 2007 @ 1:24 am
DEAD WRONG: NJ Death Penalty Study Commission
by Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
from http://www.hallnj.org/cm/listing.jsp?cId=3
Summary
The New Jersey Death Penalty Commission made significant errors within their findings. The evidence, contrary to the Commissions findings, was so easy to obtain that it appears either willful ignorance or deception guided their report.
A brief review.
Below, are the 7 points made within the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission Report, January, 2007. The RUBUTTAL presents the obvious points avoided by the Commission and discussed by this author, a death penalty expert.
I was invited to be a presenter, before the NJDPSC, but my time didn’t fit their schedule.
1) There is no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent.
REBUTTAL:
– The reason that 81% of Americans found that Timothy McVeigh should be executed was justice – the most profound concept in criminal justice, as in many other aspects of life. It is the same reason that New Jersey citizens, 12 jurors, put all those on death row.
– Although the Commission and the NJ Supreme Court both attempt to discount deterrence, logically, they cannot.
First, all prospects for a negative outcome deter some. This is not, logically or historically rebutted. It cannot be. Secondly, those studies which don’t find for deterrence, do not say that it doesn’t exist, only that their study didn’t find it. Those studies which find for deterrence did. 16 recent studies do.
– The Commission had ample opportunity and, more importantly, the responsibility to read and contact the authors of those many studies which have, recently, found for deterrence. There seems to be no evidence that they did so. On such an important factor as saving innocent lives, why didn’t they? The testimony before the Commission, critical of those studies, would not withstand a review by the authors of those studies. That should be an important issue that the Commission should have investigated, but did not.
– LIFE WITHOU PAROLE: The Commission considered the risk of innocents executed and concluded that it wasn’t worth the risk and that a life sentence would serve sufficiently without that risk to innocents.
Again, the Commission avoided both fact and reason. The risk to innocents is greater with a life sentence than with the death penalty.
First, we all know that living murderers, in prison, after escape or after improper release, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers – an obvious truism ignored by the Commission.
Secondly, no knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law. Therefore, it is logically conclusive, that actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
Thirdly, there has been a recent explosion of studies finding for death penalty deterrence. The criticism of those studies has, itself, been rebutted.
– Therefore, in choosing a life without parole and calling for the end of the death penalty, the Commission has made the choice to put more innocents at risk – the opposite of their stated rationale.
2) The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole, but it is not possible to measure these costs with any degree of precision.
REBUTTAL:
– The NJ legislature’s own cost review found that the cost differential was indeterminate. However, based upon their exclusions, LWOP may very well be more expensive.
– For the amount of time and resources allegedly expended by the Commission, this section of their review was unconscionable in its lack of responsibility to the Commission’s directive.
– The Commission concludes that the current system in New Jersey is very expensive, without noting the obvious ways in which those issues can be addressed to lessen those costs. Why?
One example, they find that proportionality review cost $93, 000 per case. Why didn’t the Commission recommend doing away with proportionality review? There is no reason, legally, to have it and it has been a disaster, cost wise, with no benefit.
Secondly, the Commission states: “Nevertheless, consistent with the Commission’s findings, recent studies in states such as Tennessee, Kansas, Indiana, Florida and North Carolina have all concluded that the costs associated with death penalty cases are significantly higher than those associated with life without parole cases. These studies can be accessed through the Death Penalty Information Center.” (Report, page 33).
On many topics the Death Penalty Information Center has been one of the most deceptive or one sided anti death penalty groups in the country. While it is not surprising that the Commission would give them as a reference, multiple times, it doesn’t speak well of the Commission.
Did the Commission read any of the studies referenced by the DPIC? It appears doubtful, or the Commission would not have referenced them.
For example, let’s look at the North Carolina (Duke University) study. That cost study compared the cost of only a twenty year “life sentence” to the death penalty. Based upon that study, a true life without parole sentence would be more costly than the death penalty. Somehow the Commission missed that rather important fact.
These types of irresponsible and misleading references by the Commission do nothing to inspire any confidence in their findings, but do reinforce the opinion that their conclusions were predetermined.
Please see “Cost Comparisons: Death Penalty Cases Vs Equivalent Life Sentence Cases”, to follow.
3) There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.
REBUTTAL:
The Commission uses several references to prove their point. None of them succeeded.
– The first was based upon polling in New Jersey. The data showed strong support for executions in NJ, except when asking those polled to choose between a life sentence or a death sentence, for which life gets greater support. The major problem with this long standing and misleading polling question is that it has nothing to do with the legal reality of sentencing. Secondly, that poll shows broad support for BOTH sanctions, not a call to abandon either. The Commission, somehow, overlooked that obvious point.
Jurors have the choice of both sentences in states with the death penalty and life without parole. Therefore, a proper polling question for NJ would be,
A) should we eliminate the death penalty and ONLY have life without parole? or
B) should we give jurors the OPTION of choosing life or death in capital murder cases?
Based upon other polls, I suspect B would be the resounding winner of this poll in NJ.
Secondly, the Commissions polling speaker avoided the most obvious and reliable polling question on this topic – asking about the punishment for a specific crime, just as jurors have to decide.
NOTE: 78% of NJ citizens support the death penalty for crimes such as those on NJ’s death row. (Dec., 2007)
81% of Americans supported the execution of Timothy McVeigh. 85% of Connecticut citizens polled supported the execution of serial rapist/murderer Michael Ross.
Thirdly, poll New Jersey citizens with the following questions. Is life without parole or the death penalty the most appropriate punishment for those who rape and murder children? Or should NJ remove the death penalty as a jury option for those who rape and murder children?
NOTE: a poll, just prior to the death penalty being outlawed in NJ, found that 78% of its citizens supported the death penalty for such heinous crimes.
– Two religious speakers spoke against execution. Both are easily rebutted by religious scholars holding different views.
– Another alleged example of this evolving standard is based upon the fact there has been a reduction in death sentences. Such reduction is easily explained by a number of factors, other than some imagined “evolving standard of decency”.
Murders have dropped some 40%, capital murders have likely dropped by even a greater number, based upon other factors. This, by itself, explains the overwhelming percentage of the drop in death sentences.
In addition, many prosecutors, such as those in NJ, know that their courts will not allow executions, leading to prosecutorial frustration as a contributing factor in any reduction – not an evolving standard of decency, but an evolving and increasing frustration.
Please review: “Why the reduction in death sentences?”, to follow.
4) The available data do not support a finding of invidious racial bias in the application of the death penalty in New Jersey.
CLARIFICATION:
In fact, there is no data to support any racial bias, invidious or otherwise. The Commission must have read the series of NJ studies.
5) Abolition of the death penalty will eliminate the risk of disproportionality in capital sentencing.
REBUTTAL:
Yes, Commission, and the abolition of all criminal sentences will eliminate the risk of disproportionality in all sentences, as well. This is hardly a rational reason to get rid of any sentence. Get rid of the expensive and unnecessary proportionality review.
6) The penological interest in executing a small number of persons guilty of murder is not sufficiently compelling to justify the risk of making an irreversible error.
REBUTTAL:
– The risk to innocents is greater with life without parole than with the death penalty. See (1), above LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE.
7) The alternative of Life imprisonment in a maximum security institution without the possibility of parole would sufficiently ensure public safety and address other legitimate social and penological interests, including the interests of the families of murder victims.
REBUTTAL:
This Commission statement is quite simply, false.
– Life imprisonment puts more innocents at risk than does the death penalty.
– Justice, just punishment, retribution and/or saving innocent lives, among others, are all legitimate social and penological interests all served by the death penalty.
– 81% of Americans supported the execution of Timothy McVeigh. 85% of Connecticut citizens polled supported the execution of serial, rapist/murderer Michael Ross.
The overwhelming majority of those polled did not have family members murdered.
Is the Commission trying to tell us that a poll of NJ murder victim survivors would show a majority opposed to the death penalty? Of course not, that would be as absurd as the Commissions conclusions in this section.
Conclusion:
Almost without exception, The Commission accepted the standard anti death penalty position, without presenting the easily accessible rebuttal to that position.
Enough said.
———————–
NJ Death Penalty Study Commission
It is alleged that the Commission had fair hearings, with both sides adequately presented.
Alleged fair hearings mean nothing, if decisions are predetermined, as this one was.
11 of the 13 committee members were either known or leaning anti death penalty. The contempt for and discounting of pro death penalty positions in both the hearings and final report confirm that.
All the prosecutors on the Commission were up for reappointment – by the staunchly anti death penalty Governor. Would any of them sacrifice their livelihood to fight for the death penalty? Of course not and they did not.
One committee member – one – was confirmable as pro death penalty.
Most, if not all, of Committee Chairman Rev. Howard’s previous affiliations were anti death penalty.
Rev. Howard’s fairness is best shown by the Commission’s final report, which was laughable in its exclusion of pro death penalty positions, positions which would have either overwhelmed or neutralized the anti death penalty, predetermined conclusions of the panel, had those pro death penalty positions been given a fair showing in that report – which they weren’t.
The Commission hearings and final report were, as all show trials, a farce.
copyright 2007 Dudley Sharp
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, C-Span, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, BBC and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O’Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
homicidesurvivors(dot)com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www(dot)dpinfo.com
www(dot)cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www(dot)clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
joshmarquis(dot)blogspot.com/
www(dot)lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www(dot)prodeathpenalty.com
www(dot)yesdeathpenalty.com/deathpenalty_contents.htm (Sweden)
www(dot)wesleylowe.com/cp.html
Comment by dudley sharp — January 4, 2008 @ 5:44 am