Death penalty's time
has come to an end
EDITORIAL, Home News
Tribune Online (thnt.com) January 7, 2007
New Jersey -- There are not
many things that could make someone feel sorry for a murderous thug, but the
barbarism of Saddam Hussein's hanging — and the images of it sent immediately to
the rest of the world — seemed to have done just that. In America, our
court-sanctioned killings are carried out less brutally. And yet Hussein's
hideous end seemed to bring a stark clarity to the inhumanity at the heart of
the death penalty.
It was not a surprise that New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission reached the
conclusion it did only a few days later, namely that the death penalty in this
state ought to be done away with and replaced with life in prison without
parole; the surprise was how simply and starkly it made its case. It said,
most tellingly, "There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is
inconsistent with evolving standards of decency."
This page could not agree more strongly and welcomes both the recommendation and
word that the Legislature will move quickly to do away with the death penalty.
The members of the commission were a disparate group that included the father of
a murder victim, police officers, prosecutors and clergymen, and the fact that
all save one, a former Democratic Senate president and county prosecutor who
wrote the death penalty law, agreed on the central recommendation is telling.
There really does seem to be a groundswell of opposition to the death penalty.
Many believe New Jersey will be the first of many states to revoke its death
statute. We can only hope to be the leader in this regard.
There are good and caring people who support the death penalty, of course; some
of them are relatives of murder victims; others are prosecutors. Neither
group ought to be dismissed, for they obviously feel the pain more deeply and
know the hideousness of the crime more intimately than any bystander ever could.
And yet there are reasons to oppose New Jersey's death penalty quite apart from
any moral imperative.
No one needs to be reminded that despite having a revised death penalty on the
books for 25 years, no one has been put to death here since 1963. The law,
in attempting to squeeze all bias, bad luck and reasonable doubt from those it
awarded the ultimate punishment, also made the appeal process unending,
unnerving for families and expensive.
And so the state has invested millions and millions in defending the necessary
appeals, many of which have been lost. The commission estimated the state
could save significant money by sentencing its worst offenders to life in prison
without parole. And it suggested the savings could be plowed into
victim-compensation funds. That, too, seems entirely reasonable.
Besides all that, the commission decided there is no compelling evidence that
the death penalty deters criminals.
We are left, always, with the notion that, even disguised, the death penalty
really is an updated version of the age-old barbarism: an eye for an eye.
That may be the method of murderous dictators like the late Saddam Hussein.
But it ought not be ours. We are separated by many things, but one of the
most telling, certainly, ought to be our refusal to kill our state's criminals,
however deserving.
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