New Mexico repeals the death penalty
Today, New Mexico became the 15th state to abolish the death penalty. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardon's office reported that phone calls, emails, and walk-in's to his office expressing their opinion on the bill were overwhelmingly in favor of repealing the death penalty:
As of noon Wednesday, the governor's office said it had received 10,847 phone calls, e-mails and walk-in comments from people who wanted to voice their opinions on the legislation.Of those, 8,102 were for a repeal of the death penalty and 2,745 were against it, according to Richardson's office.
In a press release, Richardson stated:
Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime. If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong.But the reality is the system is not perfect - far from it. The system is inherently defective. DNA testing has proven that. Innocent people have been put on death row all across the country. . . .
From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That's not something to be proud of.
In a society which values individual life and liberty above all else, where justice and not vengeance is the singular guiding principle of our system of criminal law, the potential for wrongful conviction and, God forbid, execution of an innocent person stands as anathema to our very sensibilities as human beings. That is why I'm signing this bill into law.
Powerful words. If only we could all agree that justice and not vengeance is the singular guiding principle of our system of criminal law, and indeed that vengeance does not equal justice.
