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NJ legislature: Let's revoke a law we haven't used

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by EStreetJoe, Dec 10, 2007.

  1. EStreetJoe

    EStreetJoe Well-Known Member

    NJ reinstated the death penalty in 1982. Currently has eight inmates on death row (including Jesse Timmendequas, the man who killed Megan Kanka, inspiring Megan's Laws across the nation - the law that requires notification if a sex offender moves to the neighborhood), but hasn't executed anyone since the 1960s.
    Instead of keeping the law on the books and using it, the NJ legislature is voting this week to see if NJ will become the first state in the nation to repeal the death penalty (since the US Supreme Court approved it in 1976) and replace it with life without parole.

    http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/12/new_jersey_senate_to_weigh_abo.html
     
  2. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Sits back, sips gratefruit crystal light.

    I don't even know what it means, but I find it really funny.
     
  3. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Welcome to the club, poin!

    Hop right in, water's fine.
     
  4. EStreetJoe

    EStreetJoe Well-Known Member

    Translated:
    NJ has had a death penalty since 1982, but hasn't used it. Now the state lawmakers want to eliminate the law because it can be discriminatory and doesn't serve as a deterrent.
     
  5. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    My dad kept a 19-foot boat with a bad motor in our garage for 20 years and never used it. We certainly were glad when he finally got rid of it, though.
     
  6. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Zero percent recidivism among those who have been so punished, however.
     
  7. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Which would be different than life without parole how, exactly?
     
  8. zimbabwe

    zimbabwe Active Member

    More expensive and less embarrassing than saying "sorry" and paying for bus fare when DNA evidence exonerates the wrongly convicted. But there's the crowd factor...
     
  9. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    There is that.

    But life in prison is still cheaper than the death penalty.
     
  10. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Ironically, New Jersey was also the first state to go to lethal injection as its method of execution. More tax dollars well spent.
    And New Jersey has some real scumbags on death row. Timmendequas and Ambrose Harris are throwing a party with toilet bowl wine tonight.

    Don't you know? Everybody's innocent in that place. [/Red]
     
  11. zimbabwe

    zimbabwe Active Member

    That is what I meant. I think I said it backwards.
     
  12. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    A decade ago, the New Hampshire legislature voted to abolish the death penalty but the governor (a Democrat) vetoed the bill and there weren't enough votes to override it.
    New Hampshire has not executed anyone since the '30s or '40s and currently does not have an execution chamber. Hanging is still possible, but lethal injection is the first choice.
    It does have two potential death penalty cases awaiting trial. One is a cop killing and the other, I think, was a contract killing.
    If I understand it correctly, the list of death penalty eligible crimes is much shorter in New Hampshire than in many other states.
     
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