Last week, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez ordered that all flags be flown at half-staff in the State of New Mexico to honor Police Officer Jose Chavez who was gunned down during a traffic stop in Hatch, New Mexico.

This week, the news is that Governor Martinez is seeking to have the death penalty re-instated there. 

Governor Martinez is a former prosecutor, and her perspective in the viability and need for capital punishment is shared by most prosecutors, at both the state and federal levels.

But will New Mexico return to executions? 

It was only a few years back that the death penalty was repealed there — see our previous post on that event, which was hard-fought by lots of powers-that-be there, including Albuquerque’s Sheriff Darren White. 

In January, Governor Martinez will go before the state legislature to start the process of getting the death penalty back on the books.

And it looks like she’s got better than even odds of success. 

What about Delaware and New Jersey?

Meanwhile, there are reports of movements in other states to bring back the death penalty:

1.  Delaware has some politicos moving to reinstate capital punishment after the recent state supreme court ruling there that the Delaware Death Penalty statute was unconstitiutional.

2.  New Jersey also has some lawmakers working to have the death penalty reinstated there.  The incentive here, as with New Mexico Governor Martinez, is reported to be in response to the killing of police officers.