New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson may not be president or be in the Obama cabinet, pero he’s not letting that get him down and made a really positive move for all people in the United States. Yesterday he signed a law that abolishes the death penalty in New Mexico.

Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime”…

“Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe.”

Studies have shown that the death penalty does not deter crimes and ends up costing tax-payers more.

The New Mexico ban goes into effect on July 1st and is not retroactive, meaning that it will only apply to crimes committed after that date. This part is problematic to me. Why not commute the death sentences to life imprisonment? I am not an legal expert pero perhaps there is a legal reason for not making the law retroactive? Currently there are two men on New Mexico’s death row.

New Mexico becomes the 15th state to nix the death penalty.

Via / The Latin Americanist