That Execution Line

There's an interesting confluence of events up here in the "blue" corner of the country, regarding the issue of capital punishment. In Connecticut, the prospect of the first execution in over 40 years has prompted some lawmakers to contemplate eliminating the death penalty there. In New York (where the death penalty law was struck down by the state's highest court), there seems to be some difficulty in enacting a new death penalty law to fix the flaws found by the court. And, in my home state of New Jersey, the new acting governor, Richard Codey, was a co-sponsor of a death penalty study bill that former governor McGreevey vetoed earlier this year.

When I saw Steve Earle perform in New York, just before the election, he noted that maybe a nation without the death penalty, would not have rushed to war. That's an interesting perspective. I know that religion, "values", etc. have been cited as a factor in the "conservative" results of the recent election. Well, the death penalty is one of the topics where religious and progressive values coincide (there are a lot more, of course, but we've got the next four years to talk about those). It will be interesting to see how this debate develops.