More Arrests In Newark Execution Style Killings

I was just reading a story at MSNBC News concerning the execution-style school shootings in Newark, N.J. on August 4th. It says that Authorities arrested two more suspects Saturday in the slayings of three college students who were shot execution-style in a schoolyard, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to five.

It would seem that the local, state and federal authorities have done a very good job of catching up with the suspects in this heinous crime, and the story says that they are only seeking one additional suspect in the case. This is an example of law enforcement, and the public cooperating to bring a case to a successful conclusion. We can only hope that the prosecutor's do not "drop the ball" in this case as these "suspects" need to spend the rest of their lives behind bars at the very least.

I checked and found that while New Jersey does have a death penalty statute on the books, they have not executed anyone since 1963, so these young suspects could receive a death sentence if found guilty, but it is highly unlikely that they would be executed. As of May, of this year the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, was considering abolishing the law altogether, but I could find no final determination by them.

I have been a proponent of the death penalty in some egregious cases such as this one, I have been coming around to the idea that the death penalty is actually the lesser of the two punishments, as you get to be put out of your "misery", instead of living with the consequences of the killings. Perhaps, being alive and knowing that you put yourself in a cell, until the end of your days, might be a harsher and more fitting punishment. After all, some of these suspects are as young as 16, and could possibly live to be 70 or older, and they would spend all of that time locked away. Isn't the prospect of being locked up for 50 or more years more frightening than death?

My condolences to the families and my best to the law enforcement personnel, who are going to get all of these killers, and my hope that these killers receive life in prison, without possibility of parole, a true "death sentence"!!

suspects