JURIST - Hotline: New Mexico's repeal of death penalty keeps justice not vengeance as guiding legal principle

Tammy Fiebelkorn and Marcia Wilson [Program Manager and Attorney, New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty]: "On March 18, 2009, New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill into law that repeals the death penalty and replaces it with a possible sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. The nine aggravating factors that allowed for use of capital punishment under the old law will now make a defendant eligible for the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, or, as one expert witness characterized it - "death in prison." The new sentence applies only to crimes committed on or after July 1, 2009. The Governor declined to commute the death sentences of the two men on New Mexico's death row.

The New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty had worked with Representative Gail Chasey for 11 years to get the bill passed in the state legislature. Finally, this year, the bill passed the House by a vote of 40-28 and the Senate by a vote of 24-18. In signing the bill into law, Governor Richardson said the decisive facts for him were the irreversible nature of an execution. "If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong. But the reality is the system is not perfect – far from it." The Governor specifically noted that many innocent people had been sentenced to death, including four in New Mexico. In his signing statement, Governor Richardson said "In a society which values individual life and liberty above all else, where justice and not vengeance is the singular guiding principle of our system of criminal law, the potential for wrongful conviction and, God forbid, execution of an innocent person stands as anathema to our very sensibilities as human beings."

The bill to repeal the death penalty was part of a package of bills that aimed to put victims' families first. The other two bills in this package would have allowed murder victims' families time off from work to attend judicial proceedings and would have established a Murder Victim Family Services Fund to provide much-needed services and financial assistance to the families of murder victims. Unfortunately, these bills did not pass this year. However, Representative Chasey has said she will reintroduce the bills in the future and the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty will fully support the passage of these important measures. "