a public defender

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Two New Jersey legislative proposals in the past few days caught my eye: one good, one bad. In the plus column is New Jersey’s bill to abolish the death penalty, which was voted out of the Judiciary Committee (8-2) and now heads to the full Assembly for a vote.

If also passed by the Assembly and signed by Gov. Jon Corzine, who opposes capital punishment, it would make New Jersey the first state to legislatively abolish capital punishment since 1976. That was the year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the first revised death penalty laws after striking them down nationwide four years earlier.

“That would be historic,” said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), said passing it would “give New Jersey an opportunity to lead the nation by recognizing the death penalty has no reason to exist.”

“The death penalty cannot be fixed,” Lesniak said. “The time has come to abolish it.”

Full audio of the judiciary committee hearing is available here. Click on listen and then skip to around 51 minutes in.

HT: CDW

On the other hand, Lyndhurst, NJ has this asinine proposal:

Lyndhurst is gathering feedback on a proposal to require background and fingerprint checks of all ice-cream truck and other food-on-wheels vendors as a way to protect children. ‘Most of the people who come to an ice-cream truck are kids,’ says Mayor Richard DiLascio. ‘A parent might not always be around.’ Volunteer coaches and teachers must already submit to such checks.

This is nothing but fear mongering. As Mark Bennett rightly points out, only 7% of all reported sexual assaults against minors are carried out by strangers. He also has an interesting proposal to reduce child sexual assault.

Yes, that is a “Jersey Ice Cream ” ice cream truck in the picture.