'IT'S ABOUT TIME' 'IT'S ABOUT TIME' No one has been executed on New Jersey's death row since 1963, but that didn't make living there 18 years any easier, inmate Robert Marshall says. DEATH PENALTY BY STATE DEATH PENALTY BY STATE Thirty-seven states currently have the death penalty, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. A bill to abolish the death penalty in New Jersey was approved Thursday by the state Assembly. It now goes to Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who has said he would sign it. States with the death penalty: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming. States without the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin.



Source: Associated Press TRENTON, N.J. (AP)  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. Assembly members voted 44-36 to replace the death sentence with life in prison without parole. The state Senate approved the bill Monday, and Gov. 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 opposed 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. Although New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions, no one has been executed in the Garden State since 1963. The last states to eliminate the death penalty were Iowa and West Virginia in 1965, according to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. New Jersey has been barred from executing anyone under a 2004 court ruling that determined the state had to revise procedures on how the penalty would be imposed; It never did. Among those who have been executed in New Jersey are Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was executed in 1936 for the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh's son. The nation has executed 1,099 people since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the death penalty in 1976. In 1999, 98 people were executed, the most since 1976; last year 53 people were executed, the lowest since 1996. Other states have considered abolishing the death penalty recently, but none has advanced as far as New Jersey. According to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, 37 states have the death penalty. Bills to abolish the death penalty were recently approved by a Colorado House committee, the Montana Senate and the New Mexico House. But none of those bills has advanced. The nation's last execution was Sept. 25 in Texas. Since then, executions have been delayed pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether execution through lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt proposed legislation on Thursday allowing the death sentence for people convicted of forcibly raping or sodomizing a child younger than 12. The state currently allows the death penalty only for people convicted of first-degree murder. But Missouri hasn't executed anyone since October 2005 because of a legal challenge to its method of lethal injection. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Enlarge By David Gard, AP New Jersey Assemblyman Richard Merckt speaks at the state house in Trenton, N.J. He opposed a measure to abolish the state's death penalty today. Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.