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The New Jersey legislature voted this week in favor of a bill to abolish capital punishment. Governor Jon Corzine, an opponent of the death penalty, is expected to sign the bill into law.
Capital punishment in the U.S. has been declining in recent years. Fifty-three people were executed last year, which is the lowest it’s been in the past 10 years, and Death Penalty Information Center statistics show that the number of death sentences handed down has fallen 60 percent since 1999.
Commission Recommends Ban
Earlier this year, a legislative commission in New Jersey recommended a complete ban on capital punishment. According to the commission, in criminal law, the death penalty was “inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.”
Life in prison without the possibility of parole will replace the death penalty for those convicted of the most serious crimes in the state.
Status of Death Penalty in the U.S.
The federal government, the military and 36 states still retain the death penalty, though a moratorium has been imposed by the Supreme Court pending a ruling regarding the constitutionality of lethal injection.
Opponents of capital punishment argue that the cocktail of drugs used for lethal injection may cause the condemned prisoners to suffer extreme pain and thus that method violates the constitutional ban against “cruel and unusual punishment.”
The Court is expected to issue a ruling on the matter by next summer.
(Source: Reuters)
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