From the New Jersey Law Journal December 17, 2007.
N.J. Ends Capital Punishment, Commutes All Death Sentences
Michael Booth
12-17-2007
A quarter-century after it was reinstated and without it ever being used, New Jersey’s death penalty is repealed”
Gov. Jon Corzine on Monday signed legislation that eliminates capital punishment as a sentence and replaces it with life in prison without parole.
At the same time, he commuted the death sentences of the eight men presently on death row at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton to life without parole.
“These commutations, along with today’s bill signing, brings to a close in New Jersey the protracted moral and practical debate on the death penalty,” Corzine said at the signing ceremony.
New Jersey thus becomes the first state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since 1965 and also the first since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized capital punishment in 1976.
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Democracy Now: New Jersey Votes to Abolish Death Penalty
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