Court's Reasoning for Abolishing the Death Penalty in the States of New Jersey and Illinois - Essay Example

In 2004, the court ruled that the death penalty procedures were unconstitutional. The lawmakers introduced, passed and signed a bill in November 2007, which led to the abolishing of the death penalty. This made New Jersey the first state to abolish the death penalty. The court argued that the death penalty was costly and posed a risk to killing innocent lives. They also concluded that the penalty was painful to the victim’s families and the community as well, thus reduced it to life imprisonment (Peters, 2007).

Illinois became the 16th state to abolish the death penalty in March 2011. The state had for more than a decade imposed a moratorium on execution. The concerns raised after the justice system wrongly condemned 13 men made them realize that it was possible to prosecute innocent people. In January 2011, the lawmakers voted to abandon the death penalty. After the vote, their governor, Pat Quinn, took two months to check on this issue by looking at all aspects and consulting prosecutors, death penalty opponents, victims of the families, and religious leaders.

He later concluded that creating a perfect system that is free of mistakes and discrimination of race or economic status would be impossible (Vogue and Pinto, 2007). With the abolishment, all death penalty sentences reduced to life imprisonment.