Sure I know, you'd rather a diary trashing a Democratic candidate or some latest documentation of our ineffectual Congress. Or maybe you're looking for the latest dangerously theocratic pronouncement from a Republican candidate or an FCC ruling that will further consolidate the media. But how about some good new for a change? Mark yesterday December 17,2007 as the day New Jersey abolished the death penalty! This is the first state to abolish the death penalty since the US Supreme Court okayed it in 1976. You'd have to go all the way back to 1965 to find states (West Virginia and Iowa) abolishing the death penalty. So as Bush's "give war a chance" foreign policy reveals the utter emptiness of right-wing rhetoric about "culture of life," we can celebrate a movement towards a more humane judicial system. More on Corzine's statement below.
Corzine's statement centered around a quote from Martin Luther King Jr
"Man must evolve, for all human conflict, a method of resolution which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation."
And from that powerful statement, Corzine hit on the theme of evolution; not so much Darwinian evolution but moral evolution. I happen to think the two are related. We won't ensure our survival as a species until we do away with legitimized state killing, whether it be war or execution. So yes these ideas of morality and evolution are not mutually exclusive after all. (wingnut head explodes-- metaphorcially-- no wingnut was harmed in the making of this parenthetical)
Corzine followed the theme of evolution to point out no judicial system will ever evolve to the point of infallibility:
Today, New Jersey is truly evolving.
We evolve, if you believe as I do, that government cannot provide a foolproof death penalty that precludes the possibility of executing the innocent.
New Jersey also evolves to have its law reflect the reality that New Jersey has not been executing people, though 8 people were on death row:
We evolve, if you believe as I do, that because New Jersey has not executed anyone in 44 years, there is little collective will or appetite for our community to enforce this law and therefore the law has little deterrence value.
That is, if you ever accepted there was a deterrent value.
He framed the inevitable economic argument in terms of evolution:
We evolve, if you believe as I do, it is economic folly to expend more State resources on legal processes in an attempt to execute an inmate than keeping a criminal incarcerated for life.
And finally, Corzine directly challenged the Constitutionality of the death penalty by evoking the eighth amendment:
Finally, we evolve, if you believe as I do, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to devise a humane technique of execution - one that is not cruel and unusual.
So there you have it people: evolution and morality in the same act. Remember how little appetite the Republicans had for addressing the death penalty in the Youtube debate? Here's Huckabee after explaining how tough it was to be a killer:
Huckabee:
Now, having said that, there are those who say, "How can you be pro-life and believe in the death penalty?"
Because there's a real difference between the process of adjudication, where a person is deemed guilty after a thorough judicial process and is put to death by all of us, as citizens, under a law, as opposed to an individual making a decision to terminate a life that has never been deemed guilty because the life never was given a chance to even exist.
Cooper: Governor?
Huckabee: That's the fundamental difference.
(Applause)
Cooper: I do have to though press the question, which -- the question was, from the viewer was? What would Jesus do? Would Jesus support the death penalty?
Huckabee: Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office, Anderson. That's what Jesus would do.
Sure there's the clever Jesus dodge, but also note this idea that the death penalty is better than abortion because the person "is put to death by all of us, as citizens." Also note his admission that abortion does not kill-- "the life never was given a chance to even exist." What exactly is a non-existent life anyways?
Being against the death penalty has always been seen as a political liability for Democrats, because it plays into the "soft on crime" nonsense. But look at New Jersey's legislature and Governor. Principle and leadership actually win respect and make humane law. So let's hope the Congress and our candidates are paying attention.
From talkleft
States that still have the death penalty include: [More]
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming.
States without the death penalty:
Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin.