Equal Justice USA Press Release

New Jersey panel of law enforcement, victims’ families, and others calls for end to state death penalty

State-sponsored report comes on heels of execution halts in Cal., Fl., and Md.

The New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission today released its findings and recommended that the New Jersey legislature replace the death penalty with life without parole. The 13-member Commission was empanelled as part of legislation that placed a one-year moratorium on executions in New Jersey pending the outcome of the study.

Study commissioners included a police chief, two prosecutors, including one representing the state prosecutor’s association, the attorney general, a former state Supreme Court Justice, representatives of victims’ organizations, religious leaders, and other legal experts.

“The New Jersey report paints a scathing indictment of the death penalty system, and uncovered gross flaws and problems that are common in states across the country,” said Shari Silberstein, Co-Director of the Quixote Center.

“New Jersey’s system is just like every other in that it is run by fallible human beings who sometimes make mistakes even under the best circumstances,” Silberstein continued. “The risk of error dictates a complicated, lengthy, and expensive process that harms victims’ family members and drains time, energy, and money from more effective law enforcement efforts.”

Before producing its findings, the Commission held four months of public hearings. The Commission heard from dozens of witnesses, including prosecutors, corrections experts, judges, police, religious and community leaders, exonerees, and average citizens. The vast majority called for a swift end to the state’s decades-long death penalty experiment.

Notably, the report also highlights the negative impact that the death penalty has on victims’ families. More than a dozen victims’ families and advocates testified that the death penalty process compounded their pain by putting them through a long, extended process of trials, reversals, and retrials, and that life without parole would have been better.

The New Jersey report is just the latest in a long list of evidence that the death penalty is on its way out. Last month, executions were halted by the Governor of Florida and by the courts in California and Maryland. A recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center found that death sentences dropped for the fifth straight year in 2006, and public opinion now favors life without parole over the death penalty.

“The evidence is clear,” said Silberstein. “Every state that studies the death penalty finds that it has failed. “That is why Americans move away from capital punishment more and more each year.”

The Quixote Center is a national organization founded in 1976. The Center's Equal Justice USA pioneered the national grassroots movement for a moratorium on executions in 1997. Nationwide, over 4,000 national and local groups, businesses, and faith communities have called for a halt to executions, including 150 local governments. (For a complete listing, call 301-699-0042 or see the National Tally at www.ejusa.org. To learn more about the Quixote Center's Equal Justice USA program, visit www.ejusa.org.

The NJ report is available at http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/committees/njdeath_penalty.asp.

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