A month after New Jersey’s legislature passed by a wide margin a bipartisan bill calling for the creation of a study commission to examine the cost, fairness and effects of capital prosecutions in the state, Governor James McGreevey has vetoed the measure. The bill passed the legislature in December 2003 with the support of key state lawmakers, including death penalty proponents. In recent years, public support for capital punishment in general has sharply declined in New Jersey, and the majority of those polled have favored a study. (See N.Y. Times, Dec. 14, 2003; New Jerseyans for a Death Penalty Moratorium, Press Release, Jan. 12, 2004). Read the bill.