Guardian UK: Correcting America's moral compass (death penalty)

[marmar]

Correcting America's moral compass
New Jersey's decision to abolish capital punishment is a courageous and historic move, even if it's largely symbolic
Sasha Abramsky

December 17, 2007 10:00 PM | Printable version



The Bush years continue to astonish me.

I've written in the past about how progressive America seems to be reawakening on the beat of this most conservative, reactionary of presidents. Witness that all the Democratic presidential candidates are committed to implementing some form of universal healthcare; that conservative states like Arizona have led the way in raising state minimum wages in the face of federal intransigence; that California has gotten so fed up with federal inaction on global warming that its state legislators have passed some of the most stringent greenhouse gas reduction laws in existence anywhere on earth. Now, remarkably, the death penalty - that most cherished of criminal justice institutions for George Bush - is under growing attack.

As governor of Texas, Bush signed into law a bill speeding up death penalty appeals - in other words making imposition of capital punishment a faster, more streamlined process - and proceeded to sign off on well over 100 executions while in charge of the state. He was far and away the most active governor in the country when it came to signing these macabre death warrants, and reputedly spent an average of a mere several seconds pondering the merits of each case.

Yet in recent months the ultra-conservative US supreme court has all-but-imposed a moratorium on the use of lethal injections. The justices didn't rule that killing people was in and of itself unconstitutional - which would have been nice - but they did at least agree to hear further arguments on the somewhat bizarre notion that the particular cocktail of drugs used in lethal injections caused enough pain to merit being banned as a cruel and unusual punishment. And for now at least that's been enough to put a kibosh on capital punishment, since virtually every state that has the death penalty currently utilises this technique for dispatching those sentenced to die. Thus, at least for the next several months, in practice the death penalty has ground to a halt nationwide.

Now, for the first time since a newly refurbished death penalty process was ruled constitutional back in 1976, a state has actually abolished capital punishment. This past week legislators in New Jersey replaced its death penalty with a life-without-parole sentence, and governor John Corzine (a longtime opponent of capital punishment) immediately stated his intention of signing the bill into law. Legislators in Colorado, Montana and New Mexico have also made rumblings in recent months against their state death penalties. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sasha_abramsky/2007/12/correcting_americas_moral_compass.html

[flashl]

1. Food for thought

Governor Corzine isn't in the running for the presidency. But here's a thought: if Bush could mock those about to be executed and swagger his way to the White House, how about governor John Corzine being pushed as at least a candidate for the vice-presidency.