Baby, This Town Used to Rip the Bones from Your Back

New Jersey (where Democrats own the governor's mansion and state legislature) is scrapping the death penalty, the first state to do so since the SCOTUS brought it back 31 years ago:

New Jersey, with eight people on death row, has not executed anyone since 1963.

A legislative commission recommended in January that the death penalty be abolished, saying there was no evidence it deterred the most serious crimes. Life without parole cost less, and capital punishment is "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency," the commission said.

Reason's been watching as the death penalty's popularity has slipped. In 1990 Lynn Scarlett (now Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett) made the case against it. In 2000, Jonathan Rauch asked if the punishment could be saved from its supporters. In 2001, Cathy Young mused on the execution of Tim McVeigh.