New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

I thought Rights Readers should have some sort of equivalent to lighting up the Colosseum on the occasion of New Mexico abolishing the death penalty. How about this "Fire Up" slideshow from AI's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the UDHR?




Gov. Richardson's press release can be found here. His reasoning covers many standard abolition arguments and not surprisingly coming from the former diplomat includes this,

From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That’s not something to be proud of.

To track legislative progress in other states, bookmark this handy table from the Death Penalty Information Center. More on legislative maneuvers in the NYT article. And for lack of a better place to share, see this article for positive development on the federal level (also affecting California).