'Megan's Law' Killer Jesse Timmendequas Spared Death Penalty

Most everyone is familiar with Megan's Law, signed into law on May 17, 1996 by President Clinton. It requires convicted sex offenders to register with a national registry. Despite arguments over whether this violates constitutional rights of the offenders, it gives most people, especially parents, the peace of mind that they can log onto the internet or call the local police department and find out if there is sex offender in the neighborhood. What most people are not familiar with are the events that spawned Megan's Law. s

In 1994, a man named Jesse K. Timmedequas raped, strangled and killed a 7-year-old girl named Megan Kanka. Prior to this in 1979 and 1981 Jesse pleaded guilty to and was convicted of attempted sexual assault. Both cases were resolved in plea bargain because young children were involved and prosecutors are often reluctant to take molestation cases to trial. In the first case he was given a suspended sentence because he agreed to go to counseling and in the second case he was sentenced to 10 years, the maximum penalty for sexual assault, but only served six. The most disturbing thing is that Jesse admitted to being aroused while strangling the first girl and admitted a year later that he was sexually attracted to young girls.

Both the authorities and the counselors involved knew of this and it was even determined that he was a threat to society, yet after failed rehabilitation and the failure of counseling he was left to wander the streets again. When he was released from prison, he moved in with two other sex offenders that he met while in prison across the street from the Kanka family. The details of what happened to Megan at the hands of Jesse Timmedequas are heinous. While describing the details of Megans demise to police officers, Detective Schwarz said he showed no sense of sorrow for what he did. During trial he was found guilty of kidnapping, four counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of felony murder and was sentenced to death.

On two different occasions, once in 1999 and then in 2001 the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for Jesse Timmedequas in the case of Megan Kanka. The original appeal that was filed in 1999 was rejected because the court stated that Jesse had confirmed his guilt with his own confession. The second appeal was rejected 4 to 1. According to the New York Times, the only dissent came from Justice Virginia Long who was sure that Jesse Timmedequas was "singled out unfairly for capital punishment."

Details of this case aside for a moment, in November of this year a bill was introduced into the New Jersey state senate to abolish the death penalty under the argument that capital punishment does not prevent violent crime, and could lead to innocent people being executed. These are the arguments that have been used for years in debates against the death penalty. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes executions, has been quoted by both CNN and New York Times as saying "New Jersey lawmakers are demonstrating sound judgment in abandoning capital punishment after learning of its costs, the pain it causes victims' families, and the risks the death penalty poses to innocent lives."

By victims' families he means the victims of the death penalty. He doesn't seem to consider the pain of the families of those murdered. "Sparing the lives of brutal murders only a week before Christmas will leave a hole in the hearts of surviving family members that will never heal," said Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce today after the abolition of the death penalty was signed into law earlier today.

Even though New Jersey has not executed anyone since 1963 and the new law spares the lives of only eight men, the family members of those murdered are not happy. "Justice should have been served," Sharon Hazard-Johnson told the Washington Post, whose parents were killed in 2001 by death row inmate Brain Wakefield. "I think that we all know that justice has not been served."

No one has acknowledged that abolishing the death penalty does nothing but put it on paper that there will be no government mandated executions in the state of New Jersey. This is a state that hasn't executed anyone in forty-four years. Even if the bill was not signed into law, based on that forty-four year track record, New Jersey probably wouldn't have carried out the sentence of the eight men sitting on death row.

Capital punishment is currently used by only thirty-seven states. The last two states to ban the death penalty were Iowa and West Virginia in 1965. New Jersey has now opened the doors again for the other thirty-seven states to debate capital punishment and gives encouragement to those states that would like to abolish it.

Where it doesn't directly affect New Jersey so much in terms of actually changing their practices in administering the death penalty, the first question to cross my mind upon hearing that the man who brought about the reform that gave us Megan's Law would be guaranteed his life under law was "Is this going to affect April's Law?"

Debra Rowbury doesn't think it will affect it.

Debra is lobbing for April's Law, to be named after her daughter who was raped and given Chlamydia by a 29-year-old when she was 6 years old. Her assailant had frequented legal child pornography sites prior to molesting April. Aprils Law is a bill which would police pedophile activities on the internet and make sites that advocate pedophilia and all its forms illegal and force removal of them. It is already illegal to show children in sexually explicit poses and positions, and this bill would expand it to better protect children.

I asked Debra her thoughts on this change of law in New Jersey. "I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. To tell you the truth, I think death is too good for offenders. I feel life in prison is more effective. They are forced to waking up every day and remember what horrible crimes they have committed. They have to live with the reality of never being released into society ever again and live with rules and discipline. When my 6 year old daughter was raped by a 29 year old man and given VD, he only served 12 months in prison. I feel justice was not served, and I refuse to see another sexual predator rape and murder another child without a fight. So, if they are not allowed to return to the streets to re-offend, we will save a lot of innocent lives."