MEDIA ADVISORY - TONIGHT: LESNIAK SPEECH RE-ENACTMENT AND BOOK SIGNING

UNION – Senator Raymond Lesniak will re-enact his international award-winning speech on how the death penalty violates fundamental human rights and conduct a book signing for his speech tonight at the Kean University Conference Center from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.

The event will be hosted by former Senator Robert Martin and the Board of Trustees for the Road to Justice and Peace, a non-profit organization which aims to advance the abolition of the death penalty around the globe, to support the families of murder victims and to promote alternatives to incarceration.

SENATOR LESNIAK WINS INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMPETITION

CAEN, FRANCE – Today, Senator Raymond Lesniak won the Memorial de Caen International Human Rights Competition. The competition included lawyers from Washington, D.C., France, Belgium, Guinea, Senegal, and Switzerland with speech topics ranging from governmental to military abuses of human rights.

SENATOR LESNIAK TO COMPETE IN FINAL ROUND OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMPETITION

UNION – Senator Raymond J. Lesniak has been selected by Le Mémorial de Caen to compete in the final round of their international human rights competition. Speeches were submitted from lawyers around the globe and only 10 were selected for the prestigious final round.

Senator Lesniak, a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law and partner in the law firm Wiener Lesniak, will travel to Caen, France to defend his speech, entitled “The Road to Justice and Peace,” on Sunday, February 1, 2009.

SENATOR LESNIAK’S STATEMENT ON ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF NEW JERSEY’S DEATH PENALTY REPEAL

UNION – On December 17, 2007, New Jersey became the first state in the Union to repeal the death penalty since the Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. Senator Raymond Lesniak, prime-sponsor of the legislation that repealed New Jersey’s statute, issued the following statement for the one-year anniversary of Governor Jon Corzine signing his bill into law:

“One year ago, New Jersey eliminated capital punishment and the Coliseum in Rome was lit to celebrate its abolition. New Jersey’s efforts now serve as a guiding light for other states. Measures to repeal the death penalty are gaining traction all across the nation.

It’s worth pointing this out: among the many political insiders who made the pilgramage to Union County this week to attend the signing of State Sen. Raymond Lesniak’s new book, "The Road to Abolition: How New Jersey Abolished the Death Penalty” was his colleague, State Sen. Ronald Rice.  Perhaps it’s a good thing that Rice will read Lesniak’s book, since he was one of two legislators (the other was Sharpe James) who abstained on the death penalty vote last year.

TRENTON – Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, sponsor of the law enacted last year to abolish the death penalty in New Jersey and author of The Road to Abolition: How New Jersey Abolished the Death Penalty, issued the following statement after the U.S.

Well if you have read or viewed some of the recent press reports, you might be a bit confused.

Let’s start with the broadcast coverage on the day the death penalty option was abolished in the state: CBS affiliate (Philadelphia KYW-TV) gave its viewers the impression that the newly signed law ending the death penalty also granted the six men on death row a reprieve.

Actually, it was the Governor who commuted their sentences a day earlier.

CARABALLO & BATEMAN: DEATH PENALTY REPEAL RECEIVES FINAL LEGISLATIVE APPROVAL

Measure Would Replace Never-Used Statute with Life Imprisonment without Parole

(TRENTON) - Assemblymen Wilfredo Caraballo and Christopher "Kip" Bateman today applauded the General Assembly for heeding the findings of the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission and giving final legislative approval to a measure to abolish the state's capital punishment law and replace it with a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Assembly Republicans Seek to retain the Death Penalty for the Worst Offenders

Argue the Voters Should Consider the Issue Directly

Assembly Republicans, appalled at the utter contempt that the Democrat-controlled leadership is showing for the people of New Jersey in conspiring to rush a bill through the lame-duck Legislature that would eliminate the death penalty despite strong public opposition to the scheme, plan on offering a series of amendments to the pending bill that would better reflect the will of the people.

With advances in DNA testing, any doubts that individuals have about the death penalty should disappear. Yet New Jersey’s ultra-liberal legislature is about to repeal our Death Penalty law and take away one more wedge our prosecutors have against vicious, sadistic and violent criminals.

If our legislators were repealing the Death Penalty out of pro-Life conviction it might be hard to argue with that decision. But they aren’t. Instead, New Jersey’s legislators, who consider our state’s extremist pro-abortion laws a badge of honor, are repealing the Death Penalty because they truly agree with the ACLU-pro criminal defense lawyer point of view.