Just minutes ago, Senate President Richard Codey announced that thefull Senate will vote on S-171, the death penalty abolition bill, THIS Monday, December 10 at 2PM.
That is the same day that the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee will hear the Assembly version of the bill. That committee hearing starts at 10AM. The final vote would be in the Assembly on December 13, time to be decided.
Also see this recent article on NJ.com - A compelling case against the Death Penalty. Lesniak and Bateman make strong arguments against the death penalty, but they make policy arguments, not arguments laced in humanity.
Tomorrow I will drive to Hartford, Connecticut and testify in the penalty phase of a young man convicted of murder while the state of Connecticut holds his life in their hands. If the jury sentences him to death it will be the second person sentenced to death in 25 years. I knew this young man as a young boy, in a program for kids in foster care. I was the social worker. His mother was a drug addict, his father gone, raised by his grandmother and his aunt, his life was mired in poverty, violence, drugs. The Connecticut paper called him a "drifter" who murdered.
He is no drifter. He was in the Hartford Public schools, in the Connecticut foster care system, the criminal justice system, the mental health system. We knew him and we abandoned him just as we abandon so many in poverty, so many black kids on our streets. This young man is responsible for his actions, but so are we. I will have more on this after Friday.
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