wfn.org | New Jersey delegation asks governor for death penalty moratorium

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Dec. 14, 2000 News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
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By United Methodist News Service

United Methodists are part of a broad-based coalition of religious groups
and justice organizations calling for a moratorium on the death penalty in
New Jersey.

The denomination's episcopal leader for New Jersey, Bishop Alfred Johnson,
was part of a delegation that met Dec. 11 with Gov. Christy Todd Whitman,
asking her to consider a unilateral executive order requiring the
moratorium. The delegation was organized by New Jerseyans for a Death
Penalty Moratorium.

"The governor listened very compassionately, very intently," Johnson told
United Methodist News Service. "We believe we got a very, very good
hearing."

Early this year, a legislator and African-American clergyman, Rep. Alfred
Steele, introduced Bill No. 1853 in the New Jersey State Assembly. The bill
would place a moratorium on use of the death penalty until Jan. 1, 2003, and
create a study commission to consider reform of the state's capital
punishment law.

But the delegation asked the governor to take her own action on the
moratorium because the bill has languished for months. "The assembly speaker
won't bring it up for a vote," Johnson explained. "It's too much of a hot
potato."

The United Methodist Church has officially opposed the use of capital
punishment since 1980. The denomination's Social Principles call for
eliminating capital punishment "from all criminal codes." 

Johnson said he and Roman Catholic Bishop John M. Smith of Trenton, also a
part of the delegation, had visited prisoners on New Jersey's death row
during Holy Week last spring. He added that he plans to make the visit an
annual one.

The bishop also created a committee, the United Methodist New Jersey Area
Church and Society Task Force to Abolish the Death Penalty, to work on
behalf of the denomination. In November 1998, he joined the leaders of seven
other Protestant denominations in issuing a pastoral statement that called
the death penalty "incompatible with Christianity."

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United Methodist News Service
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