Posted on 03/13/2009 9:43:00 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
The New Mexico Senate voted to abolish capital punishment, a measure already approved by the lower House that Governor Bill Richardson must sign before it goes into effect, the Senate said on its website. The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 24-18 to strike the death penalty from its law books.
Democrat Richardson, who last month withdrew as President Barack Obama's pick to be commerce secretary, has not made clear whether he agrees with the repeal measure or plans to veto it, but lawmakers said they expect him to sign it into law.
Supporters of the measure argue that replacing the death sentence with life in prison without parole would save the state more than one million dollars a year.
New Mexico has executed only one inmate since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. It currently has two inmates awaiting execution on death row.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Anaya is also remembered for commutation of death sentences of all eight death row inmates in New Mexico in 1986, due to his opposition to the capital punishment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toney_Anaya
Let loose by the Governor
The Justice Story
BY DAVID J. KRAJICEK
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Tuesday, March 25th 2008, 4:34 PM
New Mexico’s lame duck governor gave a holiday gift to five murderers when he commuted their death sentences on Thanksgiving Eve 1986.
“My personal beliefs do not allow me to permit the execution of an individual in the name of the state,” said Gov. Toney Anaya, a Democrat limited by law to one term in office. “For me to simply walk away now will make me as much an accomplice as others who would participate in their execution.”
New Mexico was an uneasy death penalty state 20 years ago. There hadn’t been an execution there since 1960.
And Anaya had made it clear that he would sign no death warrants on his watch, calling executions “inhumane, immoral and anti-God.”
But he was forced to stand by with gritted teeth as his newly elected successor, Republican Garrey Carruthers, promised to accelerate the pace of capital punishment.
Carruthers had crowed on the hustings, “The first thing I want to see on my desk after I’m elected governor is the paperwork necessary to restart the death penalty.”
So Anaya trumped Carruthers’ tough-on-crime bluster by throwing open the Death Row cell doors five weeks before he was to hand Carruthers the keys to the governor’s mansion.
Cold-blooded killers
The beneficiaries of this political one-upmanship were five men who had shown none of Anaya’s mercy to their victims.
One had murdered a prison guard while serving time for robbery. Another had raped and murdered a coed. A third had shot and killed an Albuquerque cop, and a fourth had raped and strangled an 80-year-old woman in Clovis.
The fifth, William Wayne Gilbert, had the most familiar name among the five.
He was a pilot during the Vietnam War and later led a mysterious life that including work as a Drug Enforcement Administration informant.
Gilbert harbored a simmering rage that boiled over in 1980, when he snapped and went on a rampage of rape and murder in Albuquerque.
He killed his wife, Carol; a newlywed couple, Kenn and Noel Johnson, and a young model, Barbara McMullen. He bragged of other murders, as well.
Gilbert was a charming psychopath, from the mold of serial sex killer Ted Bundy. He had charisma and a good bartender’s knack for clever repartee.
He also had a violent compulsion, which he linked to his service in Vietnam. Gilbert made headlines in the Land of Enchantment after his arrest with chilling comments about the glee he found in murder.
“It was very easy to kill,” he said. “It’s almost like it’s the night before Christmas when you’re 5 years old.”
He was not nearly so giddy about the prospect of his own demise, and he enthusiastically accepted Gov. Anaya’s gift of life.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/03/11/2007-03-11_let_loose_by_the_governor-1.html
I used to think that NM was a conservative state. I never dreamed that the commie libs had taken over to the point that it seems it’s becoming the western version of “Vermont”.
ping
I agree with this. I think assured life in prison is a much greater punishment than executing someone.
Also if you are Pro Life I think you need to be pro all life and you can’t pick and chose.
Think Alb’q - dem rathole. Think Santa Fe & Silver City - new-ager havens. When I lived there, a Republican was elected to the house after the Green Party took 20+% of the vote...on a platform to reduce NM’s population by 50%. I always wondered if that meant THEY would leave, but I’m sure they meant for everyone else to leave instead.
So you find an unborn baby and a serial killer indistinguishable?
Are you also opposed to any war, or the use of deadly force by the police?
How long before life without parole is deemed “cruel and unusual” punishment???
I can't argue with that. But they need to have no TV, no rec rooms. Basically solitary confinement for the rest of their days, with moldy bread and water for meals.
I disagree. Former Gov Anaya commuted the death sentences of all NM inmates.
3 or 4 escaped after they would have fried. They went on a murderous rampage through Arizona and California.
I am ProLife for innocents. I am pro justice for those accused. I am pro death penalty for those convicted of heinous acts when warranted.
Very stupid move.
This is what happens when the GOP state parties are full of rinos and moderates. Rats run like blue dogs and get elected, then go into liberal mode and no one on the GOP side calls them out.
And what is Steele doing, prepping for another round of interviews in DC, instead of doing his job. This has got to end. The GOP either gets its crap together, or go away.
What you fail to understand is that by executing the most dangerous murderers, that IS being pro-life. It is protecting life and that murderer has forfeited his right to life by breaking the most critical social contract possible.
Further if your pro-life view stems from a religious viewpoint, you must also consider what God has to say about what to do with murderers.
And if you are confused about the Commandment discussing this, remember that the Commandment is “Thou shalt not MURDER” (ie kill unjustly). The bible is replete with examples of circumstances and examples that are “just killings”.
Some folks just need killin’. Let NM pay 50k+ year for sadistic murderers if that helps them sleep at night.
Ah...but assured life in prison is no guarantee these days.
Also, assured death as punishment is a very effective deterrent to those who are contemplating murder.
I am not opposed to killing in self defense so I have no problem with soldiers or law enforcement filling in the line of duty, I’m a vet myself.
I think its unfortunate the victim was unable to kill the bastard but once the state has them in custody then I think life without the possibility of parole is the best policy because there are cases where innocent people have been executed.
If you want a pro life society in my view its best to be pro all life.
Read or re-read post 11.
The death penalty is a deterrent. Especially to those that have no problem killing again.
I view assured life in prison as a greater punishment than execution.
They then escaped.
Assured cannot always be assured.
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