New Mexico lawmakers vote to repeal death penalty

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

New Mexico lawmakers vote to repeal death penalty
Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:13pm EDT

PHOENIX (Reuters) - New Mexico state lawmakers voted on Friday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

The Democratic-controlled state Senate voted 24-18 for a bill to revoke the death penalty, a source at the chief clerk's office said.

New Mexico's House of Representatives, also controlled by Democrats, previously voted in favor of the repeal, and it will now go to Governor Bill Richardson for his signature. A call to the Democratic governor's office was not immediately returned.

According to news reports, Richardson opposed repealing the death penalty in the past but said this week he had not taken a final decision on the issue.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52D0...

[asteroid2003QQ47]

1. Prison builders rejoice!

What's good for the Prison Industrial Complex is good for America!

[varkam]

5. Huh?

[asteroid2003QQ47]

8. Percentage wise, what is your target number, 3 out of 10 or even...

more in a nation with an already bloated prison population?
(Another "Huh?" won't be acceptable.)

[varkam]

20. 3 out of 10 prisoners are on death row? Did you just make that up?

Compared with the general prison population, the death row population is tiny - hence the "Huh?" in my reply.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

21. Keywords= "what", "is" and "your"

Must I preface my posts with a "Not for the functionally illiterate" warning?
(The above is a QUESTION!)

This post NOT to be confused with sarcasm.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. And your posts are not to be confused with logic or reasonable comment

A law about changing death sentences to life without parole means the only relevant figure is how many people currently get death sentences. Your '3 out of 10' comment is a pointless red herring without meaning. Do you really think that New Mexico executes so many prisoners that this will require new prisons?

[asteroid2003QQ47]

25. I give up! Unlike you, I don't have all the answers.

I do, for what it's worth, agree with post #24 though.
You?

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. I'm glad you do agree with #24

because, up till now, your posts seemed to be criticising the decision to ban the death penalty. You seemed to be saying it was better to execute murderers so that there was more room in prisons. So I think that everyone who replied to you got the wrong impression.

[varkam]

28. Are you high or something? eom

[nichomachus]

9. Right -- let's kill them all -- shut down all the prisons

[NewJeffCT]

11. so, killing is a better alternative to incarceration?

especially when innocents have been executed, and many other innocents have come close.

[Warpy]

14. Well, that was an ignorant post

Had you bothered to read even a minimal amount of material on NM, you'd know that while people do get sent to death row here for particularly hideous crimes, few actually get executed. This state has always been very reluctant to carry out the DP, unlike our neighbors to the east and west, Texas and Arizona.

Only one execution has taken place here since 1961.

Abandoning it seems like a logical step.

[Jack_DeLeon]

30. Why is that?

Whats the roadblock to executing people on death row there?

[Warpy]

31. Civilization, nt

[treestar]

19. Those who receive the death sentence are on death row for years

Death row may be just as expensive to maintain.

Besides, who cares? We don't need to risk executing innocent people just to cut prison industrial complex income.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Capital punishment in New Mexico

Capital punishment in New Mexico
The New Mexican

3/12/2009 - 3/13/09
Here's a list of all legal executions performed by the New Mexico Department of Corrections (between 1913 and 1929 all executions there were the responsibilities of individual county sheriffs):

July 21, 1933: Two men die in the state's new electric chair. The first was Thomas Johnson, a black man convicted of killing 18-year-old Angelina Jaramillo, who had been raped and killed in her Santa Fe home. Through the years some have claimed that Johnson was framed by authorities. Author Ralph Melnick wrote a book called Justice Betrayed (2002) in which he argues Johnson was innocent and the guilty party was part of the victim's family. Melnick points out that Johnson's race constantly was made an issue in The New Mexican at the time, with Johnson frequently referred to as "The Negro" in this newspaper's stories and headlines. The paper even ran an editorial saying the killing was evidence that black people should not be permitted to live in Santa Fe.

Santiago Garduño was executed the same day as Johnson. He was convicted of murdering his stepson. Garduño gave the boy a drink of whiskey laced with strychnine.

May 10, 1946: Pedro Talamonte, who was convicted in Gallup of murdering his 25-year-old wife.

June 13, 1947: Louis Young was the second black man accused of killing a white or Hispanic Santa Fe woman to die in the electric chair. Young was a prison inmate who worked as personal handyman at the prison warden's home which was near the victim's house. Young confessed to the crime following a late-night interrogation in his cell by authorities, though he soon recanted, saying the confession was forced. Despite efforts by civil rights organizations throughout the state, Young was executed.

Feb. 19, 1954: Arthur Johnson, who was convicted of murdering and robbing a Hobbs man.

Oct. 29, 1954: Frederick Heisler, who was convicted of murdering a man who had given him a ride hitchhiking.

Feb. 24, 1956: James Larry Upton, who also was convicted of murdering a man who had given him a ride hitchhiking. According to newspaper accounts, several spectators at his electrocution were drunk and rowdy.

Jan. 8, 1960: David Cooper Nelson, who was the first and only New Mexico inmate to die in the gas chamber. He was the third New Mexico inmate to be executed after being convicted of murdering a man who had given him a ride hitchhiking.

Nov. 6, 2001: Terry Clark was convicted of the 1986 murder of 9-year-old Dena Lynn Gore in Artesia. Clark voluntarily halted his appeals process. He, so far, is the only New Mexico to be executed by lethal injection.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Sidebar/death-penalty-...

[Judi Lynn]

3. States weigh cost of death penalty

States weigh cost of death penalty
With executions in decline, some lawmakers want to abolish capital punishment, citing expenses as a factor.
By Steve Mills
March 14, 2009

Reporting from Chicago -- To New Mexico Atty. Gen. Gary King, a prison guard's slaying cried out for the death penalty: Inmates had stabbed him two dozen times.

But when the defense ran out of money, the state Supreme Court ruled that King could not seek a death sentence until the lawyers were paid -- approximately $200,000 for each of the three defendants, King said. When state legislators refused to allocate more money, prosecutors dropped their pursuit of the death penalty.

In January, one of the inmates was sentenced to 54 years in prison.

"Unless the Legislature is willing to appropriate a lot of money for the defense, then I think that the death penalty is pretty well negated in New Mexico," King said in an interview.

"If we had death penalty cases on the horizon, there would be a big discussion about whether we could take a budget cut," he added. "We can't just absorb that in our standard budget."

Debate over the death penalty has undergone shifts over the years. During the last decade, the discussion has focused on accuracy and fairness, with exonerations of dozens of death row inmates sparking calls for reform and abolition. Now, with the nation's economy slumping, the issue is cost.

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-de...

[Optical.Catalyst]

4. Well Good! I'm against the death penalty

With the death penalty, it is over for the criminal after a period of time. With life in prison, their punishment goes on and on for a long time while they get to sit in prison and think about what they did.

[Towlie]

7. But for all the wrong reasons.

If you think it's all about revenge, you're nothing but a simple-minded conservative.

[The Wielding Truth]

16. We are seeing civilization returning to the good ol' USA!

[Laelth]

6. k&r for sanity.

-Laelth

[pattmarty]

10. Does anyone here know how many states are left at this time?

[SheilaT]

12. Good.

One think I try to ask those who support the death penalty is: If the death penalty is such a wonderful deterrent, wouldn't you expect countries without it to have higher murder/homicide rates than those with it?

Guess what the reality is?

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Excellent. I'm proud of NM.

Now I'm gonna trot out the piece I wrote when Wisconsin was mumbling about instituting a death penalty, from my journal:

A Death Penalty in Wisconsin?
Posted by Jackpine Radical in Wisconsin
Fri Nov 03rd 2006, 10:15 AM
As an ex-field psychologist for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, I imagine I have met more murderers than the average citizen, and I have very little sympathy for them as a class of people. Nevertheless I oppose the death penalty. Why? I assure you that my position has absolutely nothing to do with tender feelings for anyone who would deliberately kill others. Rather, I am very worried about the consequences for the state as a whole if we enact a death penalty.

Four arguments are commonly made in opposition to the death penalty. Let me review them before moving on to the particular concerns I want to discuss. Here, then, are the traditional arguments:

First, we have no need for a death penalty to protect ourselves from murderers because Wisconsin law permits us to put them in prison for life without hope of ever being released.

Second, it is expensive to seek the death penalty. Studies in other states have shown that it costs more to sentence a murderer to death and then wade through the appeals process than it would have to simply imprison the criminal for life.

Third, there is always the possibility of executing an innocent person. Some people seem to think that the use of DNA evidence is an absolutely certain means of avoiding such errors, but that is simply not so. Any number of events, ranging from misbehavior on the part of police officers to errors at the crime lab, could bring about terrible miscarriages of justice.

And fourth, there is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime. Just consider for a moment—can you imagine criminals thinking to themselves, “I want to go on a killing spree, but they will put me to death if they catch me, so I won’t do it. However, I would go out and murder a bunch of people if all I had to face was life without parole.”

If you think the death penalty is somehow going to make you safer, how do you explain this?—Murder rates per 100,000 population range from a low of 1.2 in Maine to a high of 13.0 in Louisiana. Twelve states, including Wisconsin, have no death penalty. The average murder rate for these states is 2.90. The remaining 38 states have the death penalty. Their murder rate per hundred thousand residents is 5.3. The probability of this being a chance result is less than one in a hundred.

At 3.3 murders per 100,000, Wisconsin has a slightly higher murder rate than the average for states without the death penalty, but considerably lower than the average for states with the death penalty. Why, then, should we be in any hurry to legalize the death penalty and thereby join the group of states with the higher murder rates?

Another question—Might there be something about having a death penalty that causes states to have a higher murder rate? As a psychologist, I think there may be a connection. Let us make no bones about it. To approve the death penalty is to assert that it is permissible for a large number of people—the state—to gang up and put one of its members to death. When a state authorizes executions, it is in effect saying that killing is not only permissible, but is in fact desirable, in some circumstances, including circumstances that do not involve immediate self-defense. Children learn both behaviors and attitudes by the example of their elders. From what we know of child development, there is every reason to imagine that children who grow up in a society that approves the killing of human beings will have lower inhibitions against killing than do children whose society teaches an absolute intolerance of killing.

Wisconsin has executed only one criminal since attaining statehood in 1848, and explicitly forbade the practice in 1853. This is a proud tradition that I believe to be worth keeping.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Thanks for reposting this. Missed the first time. Glad to know there are 13 states now choosing

to struggle on without killing prisoners, and glad to learn Wisconsin hasn't opted to alter its position in such a long time.

Really hoping the rest of the country will be moving back in that direction, as it had earlier, when it appeared we were actually moving toward a more enlightened future right before the lights went out and we seemed to revert to a pre-conscious state in 1976 when some mob arranged to reinstate the death penalty!


According to Wikipedia, there've been 1136 executions between then and last December.

Thank you.

[AllyCat]

15. Thank you NM!

[puebloknot]

17. Glad, in Santa Fe. Now, a call to Richardson.

It's sad and ironic that it is the formerly almighty dollar that is driving this decision, in part. But we'll take it.

Judy, in Santa Fe

[ForPeace]

24. Death penalty breaks taboo on killing

I think there should be an absolute taboo on killing in society. Ok, we have to have exceptions for self-defense and in times of war - but that's it! Once the government starts deliberately killing people it creates an implied cultural meme that killing is acceptable and weakens the taboo. As violence perpetuates violence, so the death penalty encourages killing. The statistics bear this out.

[lonestarnot]

27. Too late to rec. but I rec. anyway! and I peench too!

Because pinching sounds like thievery!

[Jack_DeLeon]

29. WTF?

I hope Richardson vetos it.