I’m amazed and happy, actually, that NJ is moving to abolish the death penalty. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of state-sanctioned capital punishment. The deterrence effect has been debated and in my mind remains inconclusive, although the punishment is so rarely applied I doubt it is significant. The idea of state-supported revenge strikes me as a gross misuse of the criminal justice system, whose purposes should not be to merely satisfy the need for “old world justice”. And finally the idea of those who are innocent being deprived of their lives leaves is purely unacceptable.
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