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New Jersey one year later: the sky still hasn’t fallen

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

This week marks the one year anniversary of abolition of the New Jersey death penalty. The Star-Ledger, that state’s largest paper, reflects: A year later, prosecutors and defense lawyers agree the demise of the death penalty has had no discernible impact on the way would-be capital cases are prosecuted in New Jersey. And while the philosophical debate over the death penalty has not changed, some say a new law that has prison without parole as the most severe penalty is better than a capital punishment law with what seemed like an unending appeals process. Since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1982, there were no executions, even though 60 defendants had been sentenced to death. “I don’t think it’s made much of a difference at all other than that some of the cases that were languishing out there are now getting tried,” said Richard Pompelio, executive director of the New Jersey Crime Victims Law Center...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on December 17, 2008 (boomark / email).