New Jersey Lawmakers to End Death Penalty

World | December 14, 2007, Friday // 00:00

Lawmakers in the US state of New Jersey have vote for abolishing the death penalty, sending the governor a bill he has already said he will sign, BBC reported Friday.

The state assembly replaced the capital punishment with life imprisonment without parole.

That move would make New Jersey the first US state to abolish death sentence since the US Supreme Court reinstated executions in 1976.

The death penalty is on the statute books in 36 other states, although several are re-examining its use.

New Jersey has not executed anyone since 1963. The last states to ban the death penalty were West Virginia and Iowa in 1965.

There has been a de facto moratorium on executions since the US Supreme Court announced in September that it would be considering a legal challenge against the use of lethal injections.

The end of capital punishment would spare eight men who are on death row in New Jersey. These include Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender convicted of murdering seven-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994.

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