Massachusetts legislators reject death penalty reinstatement bill News
Massachusetts legislators reject death penalty reinstatement bill

[JURIST] Massachusetts legislators Tuesday rejected a bill 100-53 which proposed the reinstatement of the death penalty. Massachusetts has not used capital punishment since 1947. The bill was proposed in April [JURIST report; press release] by Republican Governor Mitt Romney [official website] who is considering running for president in 2008. Romney has asserted that the bill contained "foolproof" provisions [JURIST report] to prevent innocent people being executed as the death penalty would only be given in first-degree murder cases which relied on "conclusive scientific evidence" such as DNA or fingerprints. However, this was rejected by former state prosecutor and now state representative Democrat Rep. David Linksy [official website] who said that there would be "no guarantee under this bill, or under any other death penalty bill, that we wouldn't execute an innocent person." Massachusetts is one of only 12 US states without the death penalty. In 1997, a push to reimpose the death penalty in Massachusetts also failed, but only by a single vote, suggesting that there is now greater opposition to such a measure. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.