October 23, 2007
Senator Creedon, Representative O’Flaherty, members of the judiciary committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is the Reverend Jack Johnson. I am the newly elected Executive Director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches and I wish to thank the members of the Judiciary Committee for this opportunity to testify on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Council of Churches. The Massachusetts Council of Churches is an ecumenical partnership of seventeen Orthodox and Protestant denominations in the Commonwealth with more than 1700 affiliated congregations. The Massachusetts Council of Churches board of directors is made up of representatives from the seventeen different denominations and representatives of ecumenical agencies and organizations throughout Massachusetts.
At the outset, may I say that all the Judicatories who are members of the Council are opposed to Capital Punishment. The Council itself has a long standing statement of principle in opposition to the Death Penalty and has been a chief advocate over the years to both oppose the death penalty, as well as speak against any legislative initiative that would reintroduce the death penalty here in the Commonwealth. On August 10, 2005, testifying before the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary, the Rev. Dr. Diane C. Kessler, former executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches said, “While religious communities use varied moral reasoning to express their opposition to the capital punishment, the church leaders in Massachusetts are unified in opposing the death penalty as unnecessary, unjust and intolerable.” It goes without say that we are opposed to Bill HB1511.
Might I commend to you and your staff the publication, “The Death Penalty: The Religious Community calls for abolition”, revised and published in 1998 as a significant resource of twenty-nine statements of every major religious organization in the country, calling for the abolition of the death penalty, grounded in pragmatic reasoning and moral admonition.
The occasion today for me as the new Director of the Council is my first opportunity to testify before a committee of the Legislature here in the Commonwealth. Yet, it is of interest to note that while this is my first such experience in the Commonwealth, it is not my first experience to testify on this matter. It was but one year ago, on October 25, 2006, that I had such an opportunity to testify before the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, New Jersey but up to three months ago was home to me for all my life.
It is most important as you consider this issue once more, that you carefully look at the work of the New Jersey Commission, created by its Legislature and the Governor, and more importantly learn from its findings. This distinguished Commission, created in 2005, was designed to study all aspects of the death penalty as currently administered in New Jersey, and to report its findings ad recommendations, including any recommended legislation, to the Legislature and the Governor. The Commission conducted a thorough, credible, and transparent examination. Over the course of six public hearings, the Commission heard from dozens of witnesses, including prosecutors, correction experts, judges, police, community and religious leaders, and exonorees, the vast majority calling for an end to the States two decades long death penalty.
The Commission completed its work in the spring of 2007 and set forth its findings and recommendations to the Legislature.
FINDINGS
(1) There is no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rational serves a legitimate penological intent.
(2) The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole, but it is not possible to measure these costs with any degree of precision.
(3) There is increasing evidence that the death penalty in inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.
(4) The available data do not support a finding of invidious racial bias in the application of the death penalty in New Jersey.
(5) Abolition of the death penalty will eliminate the risk of disproportionality in capital sentencing.
(6) The penological interest in executing a small number of persons guilty of murder is not sufficiently compelling to justify the risk of making an irreversible mistake.
(7) The alternative of life imprisonment in a maximum security institution without the possibility of parole would sufficiently ensure public safety and address other legitimate social and penological interests, including the interests of the families of murder victims.
It is particularly important that the Commission recognized and highlighted the negative impact that the death penalty has on victims’ families. Not only does the death penalty divert state funds away from victims’ services and additional law enforcement, but it puts victims’ families through extended grief from the long, drawn-out and very public trials and appeals process.
Sufficient funds should be dedicated to ensure adequate services and advocacy for the families of murder victims.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on our findings, the Commission recommends that the death penalty in New Jersey be abolished and replaced with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, to be served in a maximum security facility. The Commission also recommends that any cost savings resulting from the abolition of the death penalty be used for benefits and services for survivors of victims of homicide.
Finally, it is important to know that the legislative leadership and legislators from both parties will no doubt enact these recommendations into legislation by the end of the legislative session in January 2008, and the legislation will, no doubt, be signed into law as promised by Governor Jon Corzine.
Might we listen to the long standing call from faith communities not to re-institute the death penalty and learn from the New Jersey Commission why the death penalty is not the way to address the issues of crime and punishment.