moving to abolish it after a report called it costly and pointlessThe moratorium has held up the most notorious death penalty case in South Jersey. Leslie Nelson, a transsexual who gunned down two Camden County law enforcement officers in 1995, has had her death sentence overturned twice, the last time in 2002.
Nelson was to have a retrial on the penalty phase, but the judge delayed the proceedings last year after the moratorium was put in place. Camden County prosecutors said yesterday that they would continue to seek the death penalty against Nelson unless the law is abolished.
The only two other South Jersey death row inmates are Brian Wakefield, who was convicted in 2004 of killing an elderly Atlantic County couple, and Sean Padraic Kenney, who was convicted in 1996 of killing a gas station attendant in Deptford, Gloucester County.
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Someone I worked with, a long time ago, had to debate over the death penalty in high school. She was chosen to defend it. She presented everything that she found and for her closing arguments on why the death penalty should be in place, she played part of an interview with Charles Manson. She won the debate.
