Murder Victim Family Fights Executions

For the last six years, Eddie and Karen Hicks have been living a nightmare. Their 26-year-old daughter Jamila was murdered, shot in the head. She died instantly.

But when asked if he thinks murderers like the one who killed his daughter should be executed, Eddie Hicks says no.

"No. Absolutely not," he says. "I just don't believe in the death penalty. I never have."

Even with his daughter's murder, Eddie Hicks is not only opposed to capital punishment, he's fighting it. He's part of a commission that recommended this week that New Jersey's death penalty be abolished and replaced with life imprisonment without parole. CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano reports.

"As long as you have the death penalty statutes on the books, there's going to be the chance that someone will be executed who was innocent," says Hicks.

There are only nine men on New Jersey's death row and no one has been executed in more than 40 years. But New Jersey state Sen. Robert Singer, whose daughter was badly injured in a suicide bomb attack in Israel, says victims of the worst crimes deserve that option.

"I think the state should have the right in certain heinous crimes to be able to find a person that violent that they should put them to death. In the case again of a serial killer, in the case of a terrorist, in the case of someone who has murdered a policeman or someone who has murdered children.

Death sentences in the United States are declining. In the last ten years, the number has dropped from 317 to 114.

"I think DNA science and the evidence that some people have been on death row for a long time and been innocent — or have actually been executed — has had a massive effect of public opinion, says Fordham Univ. Law Professor Deborah Denno.

Since the death penalty was reinstated 35 years ago, 123 people have been freed from death row after serious doubts about their convictions. DNA testing proved that 14 of them were innocent.

But for Eddie and Karen Hicks — who are raising their daughter's 14 year old son, Khalid, the loss of their daughter is still painful.

Eddie Hicks says his family's emptiness will never be filled — even if his daughter's killer were executed.
Bianca Solorzano