CONTACT: Beth Panilaitis
March 19, 2009
(434)
960-7779
STATEMENT BY BETH PANILAITIS,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
VIRGINIANS FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE
DEATH PENALTY
ON NEW MEXICO’S REPEAL OF ITS DEATH PENALTY
Charlottesville, VA – Virginians for Alternatives to the Death
Penalty (VADP) congratulates New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and the state
legislature for their leadership in repealing capital punishment in their state.
The strong bipartisan vote in the New Mexico legislature reflects broad
consensus that the death penalty has failed the people of New Mexico, who like
the citizens of Virginia, have come to know that it risks executing the
innocent, is unfairly applied, fails victims’ families and law enforcement and
wastes scarce taxpayer dollars.
By repealing the death penalty, New Mexico has chosen to
focus its energies and resources where they should be focused: On providing
tangible assistance to the families of murder victims. The additional measures
making their way through the legislature at this moment will enable New Mexico
to use the savings gained from ending the death penalty to provide a reparation
award to children of murder victims, provide services and programs to murder
victims’ families, and create a murder victim family services fund.
Additionally, another measure requires employers to provide leave to crime
victims to attend judicial proceedings.
In this time of fiscal crisis, it is more important than
ever to make smart choices when it comes to meeting the needs of our citizens.
Replacing the death penalty marked the end of a costly, ineffective aspect of
New Mexico’s
criminal justice system. With it went the false promise that executions would
bring healing to survivors of homicide victims. Now in New Mexico the priority
will be on assisting murder victims’ families as opposed to pursuing the
executions of a handful of individuals. Perpetrators will be sentenced to life
imprisonment or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
New
Mexico’s decision to end capital
punishment brings to 15 the number of states that no longer carry out
executions. Other states have put executions on hold or have commissioned
studies. These actions come amidst a growing chorus of concern about the death
penalty across the country. Since 2000 there has been a dramatic decrease in
all aspects of death penalty use. And public opinion has shifted away from
support for capital punishment. These developments, which are the backdrop
against which New Jersey and New York, and now New Mexico, abandoned the death penalty, are
evidence that Americans are moving away from capital punishment.
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