Hey, thatÂ’s what it amounts to.

Just days after New Jersey authorities announced the arrest of six men suspected of plotting a terror attack against a military base in the state, two state Democratic lawmakers are pushing a bill to abolish the state's death penalty - even in the most serious cases of terrorism, murder and rape.

A state Senate panel was meeting Thursday to debate replacing the state's death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

"Terrorists want to be martyrs. Let's not give them another reason to commit heinous acts by singling them out for the death penalty," said state Sen. Ray Lesniak, introducing legislation, which the Union County Democrat said "will ensure that the system of justice administered by our state is effective, consistent and just."

However, the terrorists are looking to die in the course of their act of terror. And I donÂ’t think we could reasonably argue that they are coming to jurisdictions with the death penalty to double their opportunities to die.
And then there is this stupid argument.

"The frequency of murders makes it obvious that the death penalty simply doesn't work as a deterrent," said state Sen. Shirley Turner, whose district includes Trenton, the state capital which has had serious problems with gang violence and murders in recent years.

And the same argument can be made about the failure of imprisonment to have a deterrent effect, so should we do away with imprisonment as well, right? I guess that Turner has never encountered the notion of the death penalty (or imprisonment) as PUNISHMENT.

Posted by: Greg at 12:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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