Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 19, 2006 16:46:04 GMT -5
Assemblyman changes mind on capital punishment
State Assemblyman Nelson T. Albano, D-Cumberland, Cape May, Atlantic,
announced Friday at a forum against the death penalty that he has changed
his mind and now opposes capital punishment. Albano told an audience of
about 50 people at Sacred Heart High School that his change of heart came
after reading a book about Kirk Bloodsworth, the 1st death-row inmate in
the United States to be exonerated by DNA evidence. The book, he said,
gave him compelling insight into why our capital-punishment system is
flawed and should be put on hold.
"I think we owe it to the people in our prisons who are innocent to stop
executing," he said.
The forum, which was sponsored by New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the
Death Penalty, featured talks by 2 prominent speakers in the national
campaign to abolish the death penalty.
Maryland resident Vicki Schieber, whose 22-year-old daughter was murdered
by a serial rapist in Philadelphia in 1998, told those in attendance why
she and her family opposed the death penalty for her daughter's killer.
"That doesn't help me heal, and it creates another grieving family,"
Schieber said. "That doesn't lessen my pain. That doesn't bring my
daughter back."
The other speaker, Juan Roberto Melendez, spent almost 18 years on
Florida's death row before he was exonerated in 2002 after discovery of
evidence prompted a judge to grant him a new trial.
"I was not saved by the system," Melendez said. I was saved in spite of
the system. I was saved by the grace of God. I was saved by miracles."
The speakers' appearance in Vineland follows their testimony this week to
New Jersey's Death Penalty Study Commission.
The panel, which was set up early this year by the Legislature to assess
the state's capital punishment system, consists of 13 members from the
state's law enforcement, legal and judicial segments as well as public
representatives. The panel will hold a series of meetings, including one
in Trenton on Sept. 27, before its final report is due in mid-November.
Albano said he has a strong personal connection to the ideas and feelings
associated with capital punishment. His 19 year-old son was killed Dec.
20, 2001, he said, by a drunken driver who was a 5-time repeat offender.
He considers his son's killing an act of murder.
"I know what it feels like to want revenge," he said. Let the guilty truly
suffer and live their lives without freedom."
According to NJADP director Celeste Fitzgerald, the organization was
founded in 1999 and has earned the support of more than 10,000 members and
250 supporting organizations such as the League of Women Voters. The
group, she added, began lobbying legislators to look at the state's
capital punishment system in 2003.
Fitzgerald said that 80 percent of the state's capital convictions are
overturned at some point in what she described as a lengthy and expensive
appeals process.
"The more you know about the death penalty, the less you like it," she
said.
For more information on NJADP, go to www.njadp.org.
(source: Atlantic City Press)
State Assemblyman Nelson T. Albano, D-Cumberland, Cape May, Atlantic,
announced Friday at a forum against the death penalty that he has changed
his mind and now opposes capital punishment. Albano told an audience of
about 50 people at Sacred Heart High School that his change of heart came
after reading a book about Kirk Bloodsworth, the 1st death-row inmate in
the United States to be exonerated by DNA evidence. The book, he said,
gave him compelling insight into why our capital-punishment system is
flawed and should be put on hold.
"I think we owe it to the people in our prisons who are innocent to stop
executing," he said.
The forum, which was sponsored by New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the
Death Penalty, featured talks by 2 prominent speakers in the national
campaign to abolish the death penalty.
Maryland resident Vicki Schieber, whose 22-year-old daughter was murdered
by a serial rapist in Philadelphia in 1998, told those in attendance why
she and her family opposed the death penalty for her daughter's killer.
"That doesn't help me heal, and it creates another grieving family,"
Schieber said. "That doesn't lessen my pain. That doesn't bring my
daughter back."
The other speaker, Juan Roberto Melendez, spent almost 18 years on
Florida's death row before he was exonerated in 2002 after discovery of
evidence prompted a judge to grant him a new trial.
"I was not saved by the system," Melendez said. I was saved in spite of
the system. I was saved by the grace of God. I was saved by miracles."
The speakers' appearance in Vineland follows their testimony this week to
New Jersey's Death Penalty Study Commission.
The panel, which was set up early this year by the Legislature to assess
the state's capital punishment system, consists of 13 members from the
state's law enforcement, legal and judicial segments as well as public
representatives. The panel will hold a series of meetings, including one
in Trenton on Sept. 27, before its final report is due in mid-November.
Albano said he has a strong personal connection to the ideas and feelings
associated with capital punishment. His 19 year-old son was killed Dec.
20, 2001, he said, by a drunken driver who was a 5-time repeat offender.
He considers his son's killing an act of murder.
"I know what it feels like to want revenge," he said. Let the guilty truly
suffer and live their lives without freedom."
According to NJADP director Celeste Fitzgerald, the organization was
founded in 1999 and has earned the support of more than 10,000 members and
250 supporting organizations such as the League of Women Voters. The
group, she added, began lobbying legislators to look at the state's
capital punishment system in 2003.
Fitzgerald said that 80 percent of the state's capital convictions are
overturned at some point in what she described as a lengthy and expensive
appeals process.
"The more you know about the death penalty, the less you like it," she
said.
For more information on NJADP, go to www.njadp.org.
(source: Atlantic City Press)