I've been trying to write a short piece on why now, why New Jersey, and how NJ fits in to the larger struggle against the death penalty. Shari Silberstein of EJUSA does a better job then I ever could. In a private email, that she has been kind enough to let me excerpt below, she provides the best insight yet on why New Jersey, why now, and why this is more than just a victory for the people of New Jersey:
Every piece of evidence that the death penalty is ending -- from moratorium and abolition bills getting close in Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, Colorado, and Maryland -- to death sentences dropping in Texas -- to newspapers changing their editorial positions in Birmingham and Dallas and Chicago -- to juvenile campaigns in Missouri and Wyoming and South Dakota and Arkansas that impacted the Supreme Court -- to study commissions in Tennessee and California -- to a million other things -- every one of those developments paint a picture of a death penalty that is failing and dying everywhere. And the people in New Jersey knew it, and it mattered. A lot. This victory so very much belongs to every last one of us in this movement, unequivocally.
The best editorial cartoon, by far is here (we don't yet have rights to reproduce it).
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