The New York Times

Wednesday August 6, 1997

Whitman Forms Panel to Expedite Death Penalty Cases

By JENNIFER PRESTON

TRENTON, Aug. 6 - No one has been executed in New Jersey since the state reinstated the death penalty 15 years ago today, which Gov. Christine Todd Whitman noted as she announced that she would set up a 15-member commission to recommend how to speed death penalty cases through the court system.

The Governor said she wanted the commission to examine why it took more than a decade for defendants in death penalty cases to exhaust their state and Federal appeals, and then to suggest changes to expedite the process. She signed an executive order creating the commission as she stood outside the brick walls of the New Jersey State Prison here, where 14 inmates are on death row.

"For every prisoner stalling execution with interminable appeals, there's a family member who has spent all those years of appeals waiting for justice to be done," Governor Whitman said. "We owe these families something. We owe the victims something."

Mrs. Whitman, who is running for re-election this year, dismissed questions about whether her announcement was intended to bolster her image as a crime fighter. Opinion polls show that two-thirds of the state's voters support capital punishment. "I don't need to do this to be perceived as being tough on crime," she said.

New Jersey is among 38 states with death penalty laws and among 10 states, including New York and Connecticut, where there have been no executions since the laws were reinstated.

Dale Jones, an assistant public defender who oversees the capital crimes division in the state's Office of the Public Defender, said that he welcomed the commission's review.

"The more the public knows, the more the public will understand that there is no hidden agenda here," Mr. Jones said.

Mr. Jones said that the wait was no longer than in Arizona, Arkansas, California and most other states that restored capital punishment sooner and began executing condemned prisoners only in recent years. "'The process simply insures that we are not executing the innocent, that we are not executing the mentally incompetent and we are not executing people because they were selected to be prosecuted because of racial or gender bias," Mr. Jones said.

But Governor Whitman said that some changes could be made in New Jersey, like streamlining the appeals process. She appointed former Representative Richard A. Zimmer to head the commission, which she said would be asked to file a report with the Governor and the State Legislature within six months after its first meeting.

Lisa N. Bartle, a spokeswoman for the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, said that several other states were looking at expediting the appeals process in death penalty cases. She said Texas recently adopted legislation to help speed the process, in ways like limiting the time in which a prisoner can raise issues on appeal.

No one has been executed in New Jersey since 1963. Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1982, 46 defendants have been sentenced to death. The State Supreme Court has reversed the death sentences of 30 defendants for various reasons, including trial errors and prosecutorial misconduct.

The court has upheld the death sentences, of eight defendants, including one condemned prisoner who has since died. Many of these seven defendants have filed other state appeals. Six others are at earlier stages of the appeal process. Another condemned prisoner, whose case was wending its way through the system, has also died.

Only one convicted murderer, Richard 0. Marshall, 58, a former Toms River insurance executive, has exhausted all his state court appeals. Mr. Marshall, who was convicted of hiring someone to kill his wife, Maria, in 1984 for her $1.5 million insurance policy, is appealing his death sentence in the Federal courts. The process could take several more years, officials said.

Another prisoner, John Martini, whose death sentence has been upheld by the State Supreme Court, has asked the state to carry out his death sentence, but the state's highest court ruled that his lawyers could continue to file appeals protesting his death sentence.

Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a non-profit advocacy group, said that the process was lengthy because the courts and the Constitution required a careful review in death penalty cases. He called Governor

Whitman's announcement "typical election-year politics."