Ocean prosecutor
calls for end to death penalty
By TRISTAN SCHWEIGER,
pressofatlanticcity.com, From the Web, December 11, 2005
TOMS RIVER, Dec.9 -- Ocean
County Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher is calling for the end of capital punishment
in New Jersey, according to a letter released by his office.
In the letter addressed to acting Gov. Richard J. Codey, Kelaher does not state
his feelings on the morality of executions. In fact, Robert Gasser,
executive assistant prosecutor and spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office, said
Thursday that Kelaher is "not opposed to the death penalty's principle."
Rather, Kelaher's support for ending the death penalty stems from the
practicality of the system. He argues in his letter that 23 years of
death-penalty trials in New Jersey have resulted in no executions.
"The history of nonapplication of the law has been a cruel hoax on the families
of the victims and the citizens of this state," Kelaher wrote. "They have
been deprived of final resolutions over the acts of homicidal criminals where
the evidence is overwhelming."
Kelaher noted that New Jersey law requires the automatic review of death-penalty
convictions and that prosecutors must meet requirements that are virtually
impossible.
"Years of appeals, countless delays, continuous hearings and millions of dollars
later, the condemned are invariably moved to the general prison population.
The strain on prosecution budgets is enormous and the cost in human terms is
incalculable," the letter states.
Instead of capital punishment, Kelaher argues for a Life Without Parole law,
which is being proposed in the state Legislature. Under that proposal,
convicted first-degree murderers would receive life sentences without the
possibility of ever being released.
Gasser said Kelaher would still seek the death penalty in appropriate cases as
long as state law remains unchanged. Thus far, Gasser said, the office has
not received a response from the state.
Kelaher wrote the letter after he was contacted by the group New Jerseyans for
Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Gasser said. Unlike Kelaher, that
organization believes execution is immoral in principle, but also argues it is
impractical, according to the group's Web site.
TSchweiger@pressofac.com (609) 978-2015.
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