New Mexico Abolishes Death Penalty

State Becomes 15th To Eschew Capital Punishment After Gov. Bill Richardson, Who Once Opposed A Repeal, Signs Law

(CBS/AP)  Gov. Bill Richardson says he is signing a bill repealing New Mexico's death penalty.

The bill replaces lethal injection with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The governor faced a deadline of midnight for making a decision on the bill that lawmakers sent him last week.

New Mexico is only the second state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

It joins 14 other states that do not have capital punishment.

New Mexico has executed nine men since 1933. The most recent execution was in 2001.

There are two men on death row whose sentences are not affected by the repeal.

Richardson had opposed a repeal in the past, but in signing it, his state became the second to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. New Jersey was the first, in 2007.

The state Senate voted 24-18 on Friday in favor of the bill. The House approved it a month ago.

Countrywide, death sentences and executions have been on a steady decline for more than a decade. Legislation being debated in several states to abolish capital punishment is getting more attention than in the past. Repeal legislation has passed the state Senate in Montana and awaits a House hearing. The state Senate in Kansas debated a repeal bill on this week.

President Barack Obama has said he is in favor of executions only in extreme cases, but has otherwise mostly avoided the issue and has no direct sway over states' death penalty laws. But he could appoint more liberal justices to federal courts who are less likely to impose death sentences.

In part, recent death row exonerations prompted by improved methods of testing physical evidence, including DNA samples, have planted seeds of doubt. And changes to state laws also have made a difference, as more states have been giving juries the option of imposing life without parole rather than death.

"As beautiful as our justice system is ... it is still a justice system of human beings, and human beings make mistakes," Sen. Cisco McSorley, an Albuquerque Democrat, said during nearly three hours of debate.

Financial necessity also is a driving factor. The death penalty is expensive - trials often require extra lawyers for appeals and higher security costs - and cash-strapped states are responding to the notion that it is cheaper to imprison people for life.

Observers caution that the death penalty is not likely to end soon in a country where polls still show 60 percent of people support executions. They point to the mostly conservative American South - which does not include New Mexico - as the major reason.

Of the 1,151 executions nationwide since the U.S. Supreme court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the vast majority - 951 - occurred in the South, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. New Mexico has executed one, convicted child killer Terry Clark in 2001.

Supporters of the death penalty object to murderers sentenced to life-without-parole ending up in the general prison population, and some argued Friday that locking up murderers for life could imperil corrections officers.

"There's no incentive for not killing a guard every time you get a chance," said Sen. Rod Adair, a Republican.

He called capital punishment "a just penalty for the most heinous of crimes in our society."

Opponents of repeal also said the death penalty is an important tool for prosecutors, who had asked lawmakers not to pass the bill.

[rrozsa]

Posted by panhandlpete at 6:15 AM : Mar 20, 2009

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Great points. And don't forget coffee, sugar, and cereal. Those are all products that doubled tripled in price, practically overnight due to various reasons, and then after the "crisis" passed, the prices never went back down.

[otiswestfall]

Wimps. That will never happen in Texas.

[tomanyt]

So many?
I doubt it`s "so many", probably more like "very few".

So few, in fact, that I`m more than willing to accept a couple of errors, in exchange for doling out A LOT of well-deserved justice.
Posted by davicar2.... What if your "innocent" neck was on the chopping block. Would you still feel the same way?

[mecanik-2009]

The death penalty is not a moral issue to me. If it were based solely on that I would be for it. The problem is we have such incompetant people within our government to administrate it we simplt can't trust them to reliably prosecute criminals with any competancy. We place so many people on death row that are innocent I can't say I'm for it. As far as the money is concerned it's simply the result of more incompetance of our government.

[sly_64]

What's worse, being put out of your misery quickly by death, or made to suffer your entire life ?

I would take death, so this looks like a good move.

[realpvt55]

Hey let all the states that have felons on death roll sent there. Tell them," you are FREE provided you stay there in NM. But if you ever come back to this state or any other state you will be shot on sight or after capture".

[skeptus]

If you are interested in a thorough discussion of the issue, and especially if you are opposed to the death penalty because of some of the arguments presented here, you should visit this site: http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/

[lambor59]

We need death penalty for both Obama's and Bush's administrations and the corrupted congress too....pieces of trashes.

[ccdsswrkr09]

You know very well that I couldn't agree with you more. Problem lies with the ACLU, this issue needs to be attacked at that level!
Posted by Indeptex3 at 7:52 AM : Mar 19, 2009

Oh definatly. There was a time and place when the ACLU had it's purpose, and it still does in certian aspects, but not in this one. I'm sorry, when you stop acting like a civilized person to the point where you have broken the law and murdered someone or done something equally as horrible, then you should have your rights stripped from you.

[ccdsswrkr09]

The only sentence that has finality is when the death sentence is carried out.
Posted by jackp32 at 7:27 AM : Mar 19, 2009

And that is the problem with the death penalty today. It's not carried out. People sit on death row for years. It would be far more effective if it was carried out in a more timely manner. I don't think we should abolish it, what we really need to do is streamline it more.