Life, Death and Politics

According to this Washington Post story, the judiciary committee of the New Jersey State Senate will consider two bills tomorrow that could abolish the death penalty in that state, replacing that sentence with life imprisonment without parole.

This Newsday story lists the nine people currently on Death Row in New Jersey (the count has been listed as 13 at the Death Penalty Information Center and elsewhere, but since 9 cases can be substantiated by the Newsday article, I’ll go with that).

Of the nine, perhaps the most notorious on the list are Jesse Timmendequas, who murdered seven-year-old Megan Kanka ten years ago (a more innocent looking child you will never see, by the way – it is little wonder that this started the movement to require sex offender registration in all 50 states), and Ambrose Harris, who murdered 22-year-old graphic artist Kristin Huggins from Bucks County, PA 15 years ago.

This New Jersey Policy Perspective article makes a powerful case for abolishing the death penalty based on the cost factor alone (the article was written in 2005 and New Jersey reinstituted the death penalty in 1982, and it states that New Jersey taxpayers have paid a quarter of a billion dollars for costs related to death penalty prosecution and appeals, though no one has been executed in 23 years).

And by the way, the next time you hear someone speak sympathetically about former Governor Jim McGreevey merely because he was gay (a personal matter I realize, though he used it to try and cover his own malfeasance as far as I’m concerned), please recall this excerpt from the detailed report…

In January 2003, Gov. James McGreevey vetoed a bill, passed unanimously by the Senate and overwhelmingly by the Assembly, that would have studied all aspects of New Jersey’s death penalty, including cost. In contrast to the Legislature’s sentiment, he expressed the view that after having three previous death penalty study commissions in New Jersey it was unlikely new information would be brought forth. Commissions in 1905, 1964 and 1971 had studied the New Jersey death penalty—all prior to the system being re-instituted in 1982.

Clueless.

As I said, there is a powerful case to be made for abolishing the death penalty, and Governor Corzine opposes it also, so you can be sure he will sign any legislation getting rid of it.

However, I think it is a mistake to do so, and I realize that that’s probably a strange attitude for someone like me to have, but I’ll try to explain.

If, God forbid, we were the victims of horrendous violence from someone that took a life, and the guilty person was eventually convicted, I honestly don’t know how I would handle the knowledge that this person could not be executed. I know that’s a shortcoming on my part and I readily admit it, but that’s how I feel. And that goes for any friends or close acquaintances as well; I would have no right whatsoever to say to them that they should be open-minded and let the killer live out the rest of his or her days rotting in jail. If that is decided by someone else, so be it, but I don’t think I should have a say in that.

Again, I realize that the money discussed in the NJADP Executive Summary pretty much wraps up the argument from one point of view, but here’s another example. Whenever I hear or read anything about the death penalty, I think of the murdered husband of Maureen Faulkner and find myself wondering why Mumia Abu-Jamal isn’t worm food by now.

Here is something else to ponder, and I definitely realize that it is a secondary consideration, but I came across the following in this Wikipedia article about former New York governor Mario Cuomo…

While governor, he vetoed several bills that would have re-established capital punishment in New York State (the death penalty was in fact reinstated by (Republican George) Pataki the year after he defeated Cuomo in the 1994 election, although it was never put into effect and its statute declared unconstitutional by the New York Court of Appeals in 2004).

I remember how Pataki rode the “death penalty” wave into the Governor’s mansion in Albany, and I know that should be another reason to oppose it.

The reason I’m pointing this out, though, is to note that if the Democrats get rid of the death penalty in New Jersey, it will absolutely galvanize the Republican Party in that state. Again, this is a secondary consideration, but the Democrats had better prepare for it.

As of now (for whatever my opinion is worth), I think New Jersey should keep the death penalty on the books. I know they may never execute a single living soul under it, but I think its existence is a powerful reminder that politicians understand the extent to which the most horrific of crimes can cry out for an equal measure of justice from all of us. And what that ultimately says about us is something someone else can speculate about at another place and time.