TRENTON, N.J. –
New Jersey will become the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty under a measure lawmakers approved Thursday and the governor intends to sign within days.
Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, has said he will sign the bill within a week.A special state commission found in January that the death penalty was a more expensive sentence than life in prison, hasn’t deterred murder and risks killing an innocent person.”We would be better served as a society by having a clear and certain outcome for individuals that carry out heinous crimes,” Corzine said. “That’s what I think we’re doing, making certain that individuals would be imprisoned without any possibility of parole.”The measure would spare eight men on the state’s death row, including Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender convicted of murdering 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. That case sparked a Megan’s Law, which requires law enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.Marilyn Flax, whose husband Irving was kidnapped and murdered in 1989 by death row inmate John Martini Sr., said she seethes at the thought Martini will remain alive “while my innocent, loving, adoring husband lies in a grave.”
“I feel the system has spit on me, has slapped me and I am fuming,” Flax said.Republicans said that’s why they would vote against the bill.
Assemblyman Richard Merkt said the bill was “a victory for murderers and rapists.”
“It does not benefit families. It does not benefit New Jersey society. It does not benefit justice,” he said.
Senate Republicans had sought to retain the death penalty for those who murder law enforcement officials, rape and murder children, and terrorists, but the Senate rejected the idea.
Democrats control the Legislature.
Some background on the subhuman filth the new Jersey Democrats have helped:
Martini (Flax’s murderer):
Martini made Flax call his wife (Marilyn Flax). Martini told Mrs. Flax that if she wanted to see her husband alive, she would have to give Martini $100,000. Martini also threatened to kill both her husband and her if she notified the police. Martini called again at 1 p.m. to see if Mrs. Flax had raised the ransom money. When she said that she could not obtain that much cash, Martini said that he would call back at 6 p.m. to see if she could raise $25,000. Throughout the call Martini repeatedly threatened to kill both the Flaxes. At one point Martini told Mrs. Flax “I have a problem. I’m going to jail for murder. I need the money to get out of the state and I’m going to do anything I have to do to get it.”
During the afternoon, the police placed taps on Mrs. Flax’s telephone. After Mrs. Flax withdrew the $25,000, FBI agents recorded the serial numbers of the bills. At 5:30 p.m., Martini called again, arranged the delivery of the ransom money, and again threatened that someone would come to kill the Flaxes if Martini were arrested. The FBI recorded the conversation. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Flax received a call from her hysterical husband, begging her to give Martini the money.
As arranged, Mrs. Flax dropped off the money at the Forum Diner (on Route 4 in Paramus) and Martini picked it up. FBI agents followed him, but Martini, fearful of being followed, drove into the Bronx, managing to lose the agents during the course of an hour’s drive in traffic. He returned to his Fairview apartment and retrieved Afdahl and the victim, whom Martini ordered to drive to the Garden State Plaza parking lot, where Martini’s car was parked. When they arrived, Martini put his gun to the back of Flax’s head and shot him three times. (Martini later claimed that he shot Flax, because he was afraid that Flax would escape.)
Leaving Flax’s body in the car, Martini drove his own car onto the Staten Island Ferry, from which he threw both his gun and his victim’s car keys into the New York Harbor. He then drove to the Bronx with Afdahl, disposed of the car, and arranged for a ride back to Fairview from the friend whose credit card he had been using.
The next day, January 24, 1989, a security guard discovered Flax’s body in his car at the Garden State Plaza parking lot. That afternoon, an acquaintance of Martini identified the male voice on the taped telephone conversation as Martini’s.
http://www.fairlawnnews.com/2004/Spring/martini-murderer.htm
Looks like his death row tenure has been pretty cushy:
Martini is awakened at 6:30 a.m. and eats breakfast in his cell.
Each day at 8:30-10 a.m., 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., 4:30 – 6 p.m., and 7:30-9 p.m., Martini and other death row inmates come out of their cells, two at a time, for quiet recreation. They can play cards, do puzzles, etc.
Every other day, three death row inmates at a time, can participate in recreational activities. They can play handball or basketball, jog, do chin-ups and push-ups, etc.
Lunch at 11 a.m.
In the afternoon, a 15-minute shower is permitted.
Two phone calls a day are permitted. Attorneys can be called at any time.
Dinner between 4 and 4:30 p.m.
Window visits are permitted between 4 and 5 p.m.(one family/personal visitor in the unit at a time). Visits must be scheduled 48 hours in advance and can only be from immediate family members.
Inmates are locked-in at 9 p.m. but there is no official lights out.
Friday is cleanup day on the unit. Martini cleans and mops up his cell.
http://www.fairlawnnews.com/2004/Spring/martini-past-13-years.htm
Wanna bet he has cable T.V.?
Another inmate, Brian Wakefield, earned his way to death row by way of this:
On 18 January 2001, he brutally murdered the parents of Sharon Hazard-Johnson, Richard Hazzard and his wife Shirley, at their NJ home:
Wakefield brutally murdered her parents during an attempted robbery at their Pleasantville home Jan. 18, 2001. The bodies of Richard Hazard, 70, and his wife, Shirley, 64, were found inside the Wellington Avenue house after firefighters put out a blaze set to cover the crime.
Wakefield admitted to the crimes. In taped statements to police, he described in graphic detail how the Hazards were bludgeoned, stabbed and beaten to death before their bodies were doused with gasoline and set on fire. A jury took just 3½ hours to decide he should be put to death.
Lethal injection “is definitely more humane than my parents got,” Hazard-Johnson said. “They had pain. They had terror. They had fear. My mother saw my father lying dead before she got her final blows.”
……”A qualified jury voted unanimously where he should be, not because of what he did, but how he did it,” she said. “And I would be heavily burdened because I know, just like they did back in the (1970s, when the death penalty was abolished for a time), that they simply would be opening the door for him to find his way out.”
While the vote would be to commute death-row inmates to life sentences without parole, Hazard-Johnson feels civil-rights lawyers would push to allow a parole option. She also wonders about the legislature’s timing.
A state Senate committee approved abolishing the death penalty in May, but the Senate did not act. Now, with a lame-duck session, the Senate is prepared to move, state Senate President Richard J. Codey has said. The Assembly will vote Dec. 13.
“To me, that says they were not able or willing to do it before,” Hazard-Johnson said, adding that polls in 2000 and 2003 show New Jersey residents support the death penalty under certain circumstances.
During state commission hearings on the case, Hazard-Johnson said one death-penalty opponent – a group she refers to as “antis” – told her “if there was ever a case for the death penalty then (her parents’ murder) would be that case.”
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/top_story/story/7516428p-7415483c.html
What Corzine and his merry band of leftwingnuts have done, is undermine the decision of the respective juries and thumb their noses at justice for the victims and their loved ones.
The liberal mindset has always been more sympathetic to wastes of skin that should have been put to death immediately after sentencing.
The death penalty is the last appropriate earthly punishment we can administer to the deserving recipients.
Most liberals against the death penalty have never experienced anything remotely similar to what the families endured.
I’ve said this before: Give the convicted subhuman filth same death they inflicted on their victims. There would be a line of volunteers around the block. It is an effective way of eliminating scum from our gene pool.
To those who spew the “it’s more expensive to put them to death than keep them alive” I call BULLSHIT.
They receive recreation, 3 squares, and medical care paid for by Americans who often cannot afford the benefits themselves.
Prison inmates can live a long time at the expense of taxpayers. Bullets on the other hand, are cheap.
The Left also ignores the crimes they commit while still in prison. Murders, rapes, and assaults not just on other inmates, but corrections officers are common.
They can now add more killings to their resumes and get a free pass; at least in New Jersey.