New Jersey moves closer to ending death penalty

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - New Jersey moved closer to eliminating the death penalty on Monday when its Senate and an Assembly committee voted in favor of making life in prison without parole the state's top criminal penalty.

The Democrat-controlled upper house Senate voted by 21 to 16 to scrap the death penalty after the lower house Assembly's law and public safety committee approved the same measure by a vote of 5-1.

The move now needs to be voted on by the full Assembly on Thursday. If approved New Jersey will become the first state to legislatively abolish its death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Thirty-seven states, including New Jersey, currently have the death penalty, although New Jersey hasn't executed anyone since 1963.

Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, has promised to sign a bill abolishing the death penalty if it reaches his desk.

"We should not have the death penalty unless we are going to use it," said Democratic Sen. Ray Lesniak, the bill's sponsor, told the Senate. "We are not going to use it, let's end it now."

Republican leader Sen. Leonard Lance said the death penalty should be retained in the cases of the murder of a law enforcement or corrections officer, the murder of a child under 14 where sexual assault is also involved and for terrorists.

The Senate defeated Lance's amendment that would allow a jury to use capital punishment under those circumstances.

(Reporting by Jon Hurdle, editing by Michelle Nichols and Cynthia Osterman)