More Letters to the Editor

• Letters to the editor: Feb. 23
• Letters to the editor: Feb. 16
• Letters to the editor: Feb. 9

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

New Mexico next to end death penalty?

What do police officers, crime victim advocates, prosecutors and both Democratic and Republican state legislators have in common?

Recently, all of these groups came together in New Jersey to support legislation to repeal that state's death penalty. When the bill was signed by N.J. Gov. Jon Corzine, New Jersey became the first state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since Iowa and West Virginia did so back in 1965.

The death penalty discussion is very familiar to New Mexicans. Many readers know that our House passed a repeal bill in 2005 and again earlier this year, also with strong bi-partisan support. We are proud that New Mexico has been at the forefront of repeal efforts, and we congratulate New Jersey legislators and Gov. Corzine for making this sound public policy decision.

In New Jersey, a special commission was appointed to thoroughly study the pros and cons of the death penalty - and to recommend measures that could fix the state's death-penalty statutes.

The study found there was no fix for the death penalty. In the words of one state senator, who voted to reinstate the death penalty in New Jersey in 1982, it is a "false and ineffective choice for taxpayers and residents who have lost loved ones. It has for too long been sustained by mythology and fiction, propped up by outdated rhetoric when courage and common sense would have served us better."

The New Jersey commission ultimately recommended repeal of the death penalty, because it squanders millions of tax dollars, does not deter crime, delays healing for the loved ones of murder victims and, despite many safeguards, carries no guarantee against our worst nightmare - the execution of an innocent person.

We at the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty salute New Jersey, because their public officials have moved beyond the simple question of "Do you support or oppose capital punishment?" to the more complex question of "What is the most effective public policy alternative for our state?"

Many legislators in New Jersey, both Democrats and Republicans, said they voted for repeal not because they thought that the death penalty was morally wrong, but because it was too expensive and served no effective public policy purpose.

New Mexico and New Jersey are not the only states rethinking the nation's experiment with capital punishment. Illinois and Maryland have had moratoriums. California, North Carolina and Tennessee have had study commissions. Nationally, death sentences are down sharply, and executions have decreased since reaching a crescendo in the late 1990s.

In New Mexico and across the nation, the death penalty is under increased scrutiny. As a result, the general public and elected officials are beginning to come to an inevitable conclusion: Capital punishment is a fundamentally flawed public policy that is collapsing under the weight of its many blunders, biases and bureaucracies.

Blunders? 126 people have been freed from death rows across the country after evidence of their innocence emerged; four of these were innocent men saved from New Mexico's gas chamber.

Biases? Try as we might, we have yet to find a way to fairly decide who gets death and who doesn't and who is actually executed.

Bureaucracies? In New Mexico, we spend at least $3 million to $4 million every year on a death-penalty system that has executed one person since 1960. Since 1979, we have pursued the death penalty in 210 cases, imposed a death sentence in 15 of these cases and seen 12 of these death sentences overturned during the post-conviction process. Is this an effective use of taxpayers' money when police departments and crime victims have so many unmet needs?

In New Jersey, regardless of their initial views on capital punishment, a panel of experts and a bipartisan group of lawmakers determined that the system is beyond repair. Isn't it time for New Mexico to reach the same inevitable conclusion?

Patrick Tyrrell and Nancy Hewitt

Co-chairs, N.M. Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty

Santa Fe

• • •

SunCal project will hurt city

The city of Albuquerque is preparing to be in a situation that will diminish the resources the city and state have to offer.

A company by the name of SunCal wants to build a new community on the West Side. This is not bad in itself, but this community will be too large for the existing resources. Not only that, but all or most of the money to be made in this venture will go out of state. This is why we should stop this company from coming into our state and taking our resources just to make some extra cash.

SunCal's new project will consist of 55,000 acres on the West Side, and when it is finished it will be larger in area than the city of Las Cruces. SunCal is a mammoth enterprise that profits by constructing housing blocks that are aesthetically attractive to upper-income buyers. These houses might be attractive, but they will do more harm than good in this situation.

With the number of people expected to move there, water shortage is a definite possibility. There would be 7,000 new houses built in the first year. This would be unnecessary and would not be beneficial to the city of Albuquerque.

If SunCal really wanted to help the state, they would take a dilapidated neighborhood and rebuild it. There would be no shame in that, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work. Of course, that would not be as big as Sun Cal wants or would not make as much money as it would want to make. However, it would really benefit the city of Albuquerque.

The real problem is not in development. Growth is a good thing, if a city has the resources to grow.

The real problem in New Mexico is water. There have always been water-shortage problems in the Southwestern desert. . . . If SunCal builds this huge community, it will almost certainly drain the water supply even faster.

If SunCal wants to come into Albuquerque and build this new community, it should - but with moderation. Start with something smaller and work up. No project this big has ever been built this fast before. It is my opinion that doing so at this time would harm Albuquerque and New Mexico more than it would help.

John Vick

Portales

• • •

Sell off city's new river-water plan

Tell me there is not something wrong with our water picture.

Down the road a bit in the Datil area there is enough pure deep ground water that it could supply the city of Albuquerque for maybe several hundred years, if not less.

But the city of Albuquerque, thanks to a plan by Mayor Martin Chavez, is going to tax residents what will be nearly a half-billion dollars for a diversion system which will have us drinking polluted Rio Grande water with all the sewage and waste from Rio Rancho and the radionuclides from Los Alamos plutonium production.

I suggest we sell the present diversion system to the industrial sector to use in manufacturing and we supplement the Albuquerque water supply with water from the Datil area.

Robert L. Anderson

Albuquerque

• • •

Trib's Stevens is way too grumpy

Re: Richard Stevens: A packed Pit Saturday could help restore glory of Lobos men's basketball, Tribune, Dec. 14.)

You have tolerated Richard Stevens' cynicism for much too long. So rarely does he have a positive thing to say about the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque or New Mexico that one wonders why he stays here, other than for the paycheck that he probably could not earn elsewhere.

His saying that current UNM men's basketball coach is "too good for New Mexico" is just the latest slight from this man, who sees every glass as half-empty, at best.

Simply put: Your newspaper is too good for Stevens. It's not too late to realize that and find someone who enjoys living in Albuquerque and appreciates the things that we have here in New Mexico.

People are constantly moving here, and around the country we are envied for the quality of life that we have.

John Farrow

Albuquerque

• • •

Photo gives hope to lawbreakers

My family and I were disgusted that you printed a picture "Supporting the detainee" in your Dec. 15 issue, of the Roswell protesters who support the illegal immigrant teenager recently deported.

By running their photo you have given them undeserved free publicity and undoubtedly emboldened them to further the cause of yet more illegal immigrants.

Because they have Mexican flags, it is obvious they are showing their allegiance to Mexico - yet they are not living down there. We wonder why.

As American and New Mexico citizens, my family commend and applaud school-resource Officer Charles Corn and Police Chief John Balderston for their actions in deporting that teenager. New Mexico and America have more than enough citizens to take care of. We don't need any immigrants sucking up state and federal services that should be going to our legal, taxpaying citizens.

Keith Kofford

Albuquerque