End to death penalty in New Jersey

THE New Jersey Assembly has approved legislation to abolish the state’s death penalty.

Governor Jon Corzine’s signature is now the only step left before the state becomes the first in four decades to ban executions.

Politicians voted 44-36 to replace the death sentence with life in prison without parole. Mr Corzine, a Democrat, has said he will sign the bill within a week.

The last execution in the US was on September 25 in Texas. Since then they have been delayed pending a US Supreme Court decision on whether execution through lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Other states have considered abolishing the death penalty, but none has advanced as far as New Jersey.

According to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Centre, 37 of the 50 states have the death penalty. Bills to abolish the penalty were recently approved by a Colorado House committee, the Montana Senate and the New Mexico House.

However, none of those bills have advanced.