Good or bad?


TRENTON — The New Jersey General Assembly approved a bill eliminating capital punishment on Thursday, clearing the way for Gov. Jon S. Corzine to sign the measure as early as Monday.

Mr. Corzine said he would act quickly. “It will be very, very prompt,” he said at a news conference on Thursday. “I’m sure it will be within the next week.”

Once he signs the bill, New Jersey will become the first state in the modern era of capital punishment to repeal the death penalty.


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I think that it is good on many levels. Evidence overtured, but beyond that it does not deter crime and, at least in my state there seems to be a racial bias.

NJ will no longer execute people.


TRENTON — Few other issues have prompted the kind of intensity and conviction that Gov. Jon S. Corzine shows when he talks about preventing even one more execution.

On Monday, those sentiments were on full display as he signed a bill repealing New Jersey’s death penalty and then commuted the death sentences of eight death row inmates to life in prison with no chance of parole, making the state the first in a generation to abolish capital punishment.

In a contemplative and at times emotional speech, Mr. Corzine spoke of morality and practicality, saying that “state-endorsed killing” was amoral public policy. Mr. Corzine, who said he has believed for most of his adult life that capital punishment is wrong, seemed to be making more than just a perfunctory political statement at a bill-signing ceremony.


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