New Jersey just recently banned capital punishment and commuted the sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison.  In and of itself, that doesn’t bother me.  After all, the 10th Amendment says that states are free to set their laws as they so choose, provided the laws are not unconstitutional.

However, this part does bother me:

The man who raped and killed 7-year-old Megan Kanka — the 1994 crime that inspired “Megan’s Law” — is one of eight men whose sentences were commuted to life in prison this week as part of New Jersey’s new ban on execution.

The Garden State on Monday became the first state in more than three decades to abolish the death penalty after a commission ruled the punishment is “inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.”

Gov. Jon Corzine the day before commuted the sentences of eight men sitting on the state’s death row. They will now serve life in prison without parole, according to the governor’s office.

Among the eight is Jesse Timmendequas, 46, who was sentenced to death in June 1997 for Megan’s murder.

Prosecutors said Timmendequas lured Megan to his home by saying he wanted to show her a puppy. He then raped her, beat her and strangled her with a belt. A day later, he led police to her body.

“Megan’s Law,” introduced after her death, requires that authorities notify neighbors when a sex offender moves into an area. Timmendequas had twice been convicted of sex crimes — on 5- and 7-year-olds — before he murdered Megan. 

The cretin who is responsible for the creation of Megan’s Law gets to continue drawing air through his piehole, despite having been sentenced by a jury of his peers (in a state that rarely executes anyone, just to get an idea of how heinous his crimes were).  What also bothers me is that 53% of New Jerseyans opposed abolishing the death penalty, and only 39% supported banning it (poll here).  Yet the liberal politicians knew the fallout of ignoring their constituents would be minimal, and so ignore them they did.

Maybe you support capital punishment, and maybe you don’t.  That’s cool, since reasonable people exist on both sides.  Most complaints that I have heard against capital punishment involve cases were the innocent are wrongly executed.  That is a completely legitmate concern, and it’s actually one that I share.  However, in the case of this scumbag Timmendequas, he confessed to everything, so there’s no doubt about his guilt.

If NJ wanted to implement a ban, my own personal opinion is that it would have been less controversial to have implemented it from this point forward, not retroactively to those who are currently condemned.