New Jersey suspends executions

[Atlas]

I really think this is a good move

New Jersey Legislature Approves Moratorium on Executions
By VOA News
10 January 2006

SoCals link:http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-01-10-voa10.cfm

Lawmakers in New Jersey have approved a moratorium on the death penalty. It is the first time a U.S. legislative body has moved to block executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the punishment in 1976.

The state General Assembly voted Monday evening 55 to 21 to suspend executions while a commission prepares a report on the fairness and cost-effectiveness of the death penalty. The other half of the legislature, New Jersey's Senate, approved the measure last month.

Two other states, Maryland and Illinois, have suspended executions by order of the governor. Maryland's suspension has since expired.

In Virginia, Governor Mark Warner has ordered DNA. testing that could prove the guilt or innocence of a man executed in 1992. Warner's order is believed to be the first request for a review of DNA. evidence after an execution.

[Atlas]

In a related story.

Jurors less likely to vote for execution Exonerations based on DNA evidence turned tide since 1990s

SoCals link: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060112/NEWS/601120355/-1/NEWS01

• It costs about $66 a day to incarcerate a death row inmate -- including food, security and health care.

By MIKE CHALMERS
The News Journal

01/12/2006
An effort to sentence Thomas J. Capano to death could be more difficult now than it was in 1999 because of waning public support for executions, experts say.

Gallup Poll results released in October show that 64 percent of Americans support the death penalty. It was the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 percent in 1994, said Gallup editor Frank Newport.

"There's still a significant portion of Americans who support the death penalty, but it has come down from some higher measures in the 1990s," Newport said.

That change in public opinion can be traced to several high-profile exonerations because of DNA evidence, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research organization that opposes the death penalty because of flaws in the way it is applied.

In two cases in August, judges freed a Pennsylvania man after 19 years in prison and a Florida man after 26 years. Both had been convicted of rape but were exonerated by DNA evidence.

"The DNA cases give people a lot of confidence that these exonerations are firm and believable, and they hint that other cases could be in doubt," Dieter said. "All of that is causing some hesitation."

Death penalty supporters, though, offer a different explanation. Because crime rates are down, the public is less worried about crime and more open to softer penalties, said Michael Paranzino, president of Throw Away the Key, which supports the death penalty.

"People feel a little safer than they did 10 or 15 years ago," Paranzino said. "There's still broad support for the death penalty," adding 64 percent of Americans in support is a strong finding.

The focus of the public debate about capital punishment has shifted in recent years, experts said. Arguments about the deterrent effect of executions has been replaced by concerns over the reliability of evidence in death penalty cases.

New Jersey lawmakers Monday suspended executions while a task force studies the fairness and costs of imposing the death penalty.

In 2000, Illinois then-Gov. George Ryan suspended all executions after several death penalty convictions were overturned by DNA evidence. During the Republican governor's final hours in office three years later, he commuted the sentences of all of Illinois' 167 death row inmates.

In August, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said he was disturbed by "serious flaws" in capital punishment. Other justices, including Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also have voiced concerns that murder defendants are not represented adequately at trial.