Pennsylvania should follow in New Jersey's footsteps

Anyone still seeking a definitive blow-by-blow list of reasons to understand why Pennsylvania's death penalty must be overturned, read yesterday's editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The piece urges Pennsylvania to follow the lead of our enlightened brethren in New Jersey, who abolished the death penalty last year.

The editorial is about Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on death row in Pennsylvania for the rape and murder of a Delaware County woman. Yarris would have died in prison if not for a DNA test that showed he wasn't the rapist or killer.

The editorial outlines the flaws with the death penalty and the judicial system that carries it out. But it saves its most important point for the end.

...there are countless people rotting in prisons across the country who are innocent but can't mount a credible claim because the evidence no longer exists.

DNA testing has been around only since 1988. The test helps in only a tiny fraction of crimes - mainly those involving rape - where DNA evidence exists.

Those wrongly convicted of a robbery or a shooting where there isn't DNA have a slim-to-none chance of overturning the verdict.

A review of scores of cases where a person was found to be wrongly convicted shows that the leading cause by far is eyewitness misidentification.

False confessions, government misconduct, lying snitches, and poor legal representation can all lead to a wrongful conviction.

All of those factors appear to have played a role in Yarris' case. Getting his verdict overturned was an uphill battle akin to winning the Powerball.

At one point, after contracting hepatitis C in prison and wanting to avoid dying from the painful disease, Yarris asked a judge to expedite his execution.

But after spending more than 8,000 days behind bars, Yarris narrowly escaped having the governor of Pennsylvania sign a death warrant for a crime it now appears he didn't commit.

That alone is enough to end the death penalty.

Lauri in York

More NJ coverage

Blue Jersey has coverage of the press conference after the passage of the death penalty repeal bill.



Andy in Harrisburg

A day long remembered: NJ abolition bill off to the governor

(photo courtesy of Karl Keys and Abolish the Death Penalty)

Today the New Jersey Assembly passed a bill to abolish the death penalty by a vote of 44-36, following the passage of the same bill in the Senate earlier this week. The bill is off to the desk of Governor Corzine, a public supporter of abolition. Once Corzine signs it, New Jersey will become the first state to abolish capital punishment since 1965 when West Virginia and Iowa shut down the machinery of death.

Blog coverage can be found at Abolish and Blue Jersey.

New Jersey abolished the death penalty because they found it is expensive, risks the possible execution of the innocent, and is bad policy for victims' family members.

The same problems exist with capital punishment all over the country, including in Pennsylvania.

What happened in New Jersey is merely the institutionalization of what's going on all over the country. Death sentences have dropped significantly. Executions have dropped. At the moment, executions appear to be completely stopped until the Supreme Court hears arguments in a Kentucky case arguing the constitutionality of the lethal injection cocktail. Here in PA, we haven't executed anyone since 1999, and since that last execution, four innocent people have walked off of death row.

The Star Ledger today has a feature on Celeste Fitzgerald, the executive director of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

nstead of focusing on the usual moral and religious arguments, Fitzgerald has concentrated on what seemed at first an argument against repeal -- the failure of the state to execute anyone for more than 40 years. Her group has talked about the cost of appeals and the impact on victims' family members who must be constantly reminded of the existence of killers still very much alive on a death row that no longer delivers death.

New Jersey did the responsible thing. They examined the death penalty to properly explore all of the issues, and the state came to the conclusion that it's not worth it.

The least Pennsylvania can do is study it. To do otherwise is to merely stick our collective heads in the sand.

Andy in Harrisburg

I don't believe what I just saw!

Yesterday New Jersey took the first of three necessary steps to repeal the death penalty, and it was the most difficult of the three. The state's Senate passed an abolition bill by a vote of 21-16 (in a chamber with 40 members). Passage is expected in the House, and Governor Corzine has stated that he will sign a repeal bill.

"Today New Jersey can become a leader, an inspiration to other states," Senator Robert Martin, a Republican from Morris Plains who voted for the bill, said during Monday's debate.

Andy in Harrisburg

New Jersey sets a date with the executioner....

....to put him out of business. In a few weeks, the legislature will vote on abolishing capital punishment.



Andy in Harrisburg