Connecticut Legislature Approves Repeal Of Death Penalty

by The Associated Press

April 12, 2012

After years of failed attempts to repeal the death penalty, Connecticut
lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have passed legislation that
abolishes the punishment for all future cases.

As expected, members of the House voted 86-62 in favor of the bill after
a floor debate that lasted nearly 10 hours on Wednesday.

The legislation, which would make Connecticut the 17th state to abolish
the death penalty, awaits a signature from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who
has said he would sign the bill into law.

"Going forward, we will have a system that allows us to put these people
away for life, in living conditions none of us would want to
experience," the Democratic governor said in a statement following the
vote. "Let's throw away the key and have them spend the rest of their
natural lives in jail."

The bill would abolish the death penalty and replace it with a sentence
of life imprisonment without the possibility of release.

Lawmakers were able to garner support by making the legislation affect
only future crimes and not the 11 men currently on death row. Some bill
opponents, however, have called the move a political tool.

"It's tough to explain (the bill) to a four year old and it's tough to
explain to a 40-year-old or a 94-year-old because to many it is
illogical and does not make sense," said House Minority Leader Lawrence
Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk. "...We allow the death penalty to continue for at
least 11 people and maybe more."

Rep. Gerald Fox III, D-Stamford, co-chair of the General Assembly's
joint Judiciary Committee, said he was pleased to see the bill pass
after working for years to repeal the death penalty.

Repeal bill champion Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, said
although he was pleased with the results of the vote, more needs to be
done to fix the state's criminal justice system.

"It's just one step in a long movement towards fixing our system and
making sure we have safety and equality in our system," he said.

Preserving the death sentence of those still on death row is fairly
unusual, although a similar law took effect in New Mexico. The governor
there declined to commute the sentences of the state's two death row
inmates after the repeal was signed in 2009.

Connecticut has a history of making changes to the death penalty
prospective, said Fox. He said in 1846, the state created distinctions
between first- and second-degree murders. Prior to that change, all
murders were punishable by death.

In 1951, a law was passed allowing a jury to determine whether to impose
death or life in prison for a first-degree murder. That law, Fox said,
was ultimately upheld by the State Supreme Court.

"There is a history behind this. It has happened before in terms of the
prospective nature of our death penalty," Fox said. "...I understand
these cases are heavily litigated and every avenue is always explored to
its fullest, but that is where our law stands now."

Both advocates and opponents of the repeal bill predicted the repeal
would ultimately become law.

Last week the state Senate voted in favor of the bill after nearly 11
hours of debate.

Before the vote, Democratic Senators amended the bill to require that
individuals convicted under the new legislation would be subject to
prison conditions similar to those of death row inmates.

The House voted in favor of the Senate amendment.

Many officials insisted on that as a condition of their support for
repeal in a state where two men were sentenced to death for a gruesome
2007 home invasion in Cheshire.

Despite passing the two Senate amendments, House members voted down a
total of 11 amendments, including a measure proposed by the Waterbury
delegation that would preserve the death penalty for individuals
convicted of killing a police officer.

The amendment came in response to the 1992 murder of Waterbury Police
Officer Walter T. Williams III. His killer, Richard Reynolds, currently
sits on death row.

Rep. Stephen Dargan, D-West Haven, and Rep. Jeffrey Berger, D-Waterbury,
who was a Waterbury police officer when Williams was shot in the line of
duty, broke party lines to vote in support of the amendment and against
the death penalty repeal bill.

During the debate Berger said he believes the death penalty is an
important tool for prosecutors in murder cases and as a way of deterring
crime.

Death penalty legislation never made it to the Senate floor for a vote
last year after some senators voiced concern about acting when the
second of two suspects in that case was still facing trial.

In the past five years, four other states have abolished the death
penalty — New Mexico, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. Repeal
proposals are also pending in several other states including Kansas and
Kentucky, while advocates in California have gathered enough signatures
for an initiative to throw out the death penalty that is expected to go
before voters in November.

Connecticut has carried out only one execution in 51 years, when serial
killer Michael Ross was administered lethal injection in 2005 after
giving up his appeal rights.

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