Tag Archives: repeal

Connecticut Death Penalty Abolished! (California Next?)

April 25, 2012 at 2:19 PM

death penalty abolished in connecticut

With his signature, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed into law the repeal of Connecticut’s death penalty, making his state the 17th, and the 5th in the last 5 years, to do away with capital punishment.  The law is not retroactive, so 11 men remain on Connecticut’s death row.

It is surely a sign of progress for the death penalty abolition movement that such a success could occur in the midst of contentious and escalating election year politics.  Previous legislative repeal victories have occurred during the more sedate odd-numbered years (New Jersey, 2007; New Mexico, 2009, Illinois, 2011).

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Connecticut’s Death Penalty Repeal Bill Going To The Governor!

April 12, 2012 at 8:51 AM

The Connecticut House of Representatives, by a vote of 86-62, has approved the bill abolishing that state’s death penalty.  It will now go to Governor Dannel P. Malloy for his signature.

With Connecticut set to join, there will soon be 17 states (plus Washington, D.C.) in the abolitionist club.  Five years ago, there were only 12.

And other states seem likely to follow in the near future.  Maryland already has a majority in its legislature that supports repeal.  Oregon now has a Governor-imposed moratorium on executions.  Montana and Colorado, with just two and four people on their respective death rows, have been close to ending their death penalties in recent years.  New Hampshire and Kansas have had no executions since 1939 and 1965 respectively.  And in California, some 800,000 citizens have endorsed a November 2012 ballot initiative that would replace their state’s incredibly expensive death penalty.

Governor Malloy is expected to sign Connecticut’s bill into law soon.

Connecticut Senate Passes Death Penalty Repeal!

April 5, 2012 at 7:22 AM

Overcoming a major hurdle, death penalty repeal in Connecticut has passed in the state Senate by a vote of 20-16.  The bill, with the endorsement of 179 murder victim family members, would remove the death penalty as an option for all future crimes.  It now goes to the House and, if it passes there, to Governor Dannel P. Malloy, who has said he will sign it.

Connecticut would become the 17th state to abolish the death penalty, meaning that more than one-third of U.S. states would no longer have capital punishment.  Connecticut would also be the 5th state in 5 years to get rid of the death penalty.  In 2007, New York’s last death sentence was commuted, officially ending that state’s association with capital punishment.  In December 2007, New Jersey legislatively repealed its death penalty.  New Mexico did likewise in 2009, and Illinois in 2011.

As Amnesty International reported in March, two-thirds of the world’s countries no longer use capital punishment.  This vote in Connecticut is yet one more sign that the death penalty, both around the world and here in the U.S., is on its way out.

Connecticut Committee Endorses Abolition

March 22, 2012 at 4:08 PM

Yesterday Connecticut’s Judiciary Committee voted in favor of repealing the death penalty.  It will now be up to the full House and Senate to vote up or down on whether Connecticut will finally get rid of capital punishment.

Last year, a similar bill was stymied by the fact that a high profile death penalty trial was ongoing. In 2009, a repeal bill passed both houses but was vetoed by then Governor Jodi Rell.  The current Governor has said he supports repeal, and 179 murder victim family members signed a letter in support of ending Connecticut’s use of the death penalty.

Meanwhile in Maryland, repeal bills with 66 House and 19 Senate cosponsors, and with a majority ready to vote for them, remain stuck in committees.  No state is more ripe for repeal than Maryland, where there hasn’t been a jury-issued death sentence in 10 years, and where a 2008 study commission set up by the legislature found that capital punishment is “more detrimental” to victims’ families than the alternatives.

If you live in Connecticut or Maryland, you can take action now to help push repeal across the finish line.

Maryland: Will Death Penalty Repeal Follow Marriage Equality?

March 2, 2012 at 9:49 AM
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley speaks ©AFP/Getty Images

Yesterday, marriage equality became the law in Maryland with Governor Martin O’Malley’s signature.  Death penalty repeal is another issue the Governor says he feels strongly about, and he should push for the chance to sign that into law too.

In 2009, Maryland legislators tried to create the perfect death penalty law, one that would not risk executing the innocent.  Of course, human beings are still running Maryland’s capital punishment system. Mistakes will be made, and that awful risk remains. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Connecticut Victim Families Fight for Death Penalty Abolition

February 23, 2012 at 10:40 AM
against the death penalty

(c) Scott Langley

A bill to repeal Connecticut’s death penalty was introduced on Wednesday.  It has an excellent chance of passing, largely because an increasing number of murder victim family members have been calling for an end to capital punishment in their state.  There’s a blog on which many of them discuss their reasons, and this piece in the New London Day and this piece in the West Hartford News both do a good job of outlining why so many murder victim family members have had it with Connecticut’s death penalty and believe they will be better off without it.

There are many reasons victim family members may oppose the death penalty.  There is the endless process that turns the killer into a celebrity while forcing the family to constantly relive the worst moment of their lives.  There is the waste of resources that could be spent on counseling and other real support for survivors of homicide.  And there is the false promise of an execution which will most likely never happen (especially in Connecticut where there has been only one execution in the last 50 years) and may not provide the expected “closure” even if it does.

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The California Abolition Bill Is Moving

August 10, 2011 at 3:46 PM

against the death penaltyEarlier this summer, California State Senator Lori Hancock introduced a death penalty repeal bill (SB-490), after a study found that her state spends the exorbitant amount of $184 million dollars annually to keep capital punishment on the books.

The bill has already passed its first committee hurdle, and will have another hearing next week.

On July 5, speaking before the Assembly Public Safety Committee was former prosecutor Donald Heller, who authored California’s death penalty law back in 1978. He said: “I fervently believe that capital punishment should be abolished,” and he called for savings from death penalty repeal to be used to support law enforcement.

A former warden of San Quentin State Prison, Jeanne Woodford, testified that the death penalty in California is “wasteful”, “counterproductive to public safety” and “terribly unfair to the victims’ families”.

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New Bill Would Abolish California's Death Penalty

June 27, 2011 at 4:49 PM

According to a recent study, if California were to rid itself of the death penalty and everyone on death row received the next highest penalty on the books (life without parole) it would save tax payers $184 million per year.

Execution witness viewing room (c) Scott Langley

No state, certainly not California, can afford to waste public money like this. This is a state that has cut valuable social services and funds for education in the face of serious budget shortfalls.

The death penalty is a public policy failure that does not represent the best of our values as a society that says it is committed to human rights. It is a distraction from real solutions that could prevent violent crime and bring valuable services to murder victims’ families.

What could the state do with $184 million per year to improve the lives of Californians?

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First Steps Toward Abolition in Connecticut

March 11, 2011 at 9:12 AM

By Helen Jack, Yale University Amnesty International Chapter Coordinator

 

Following the lead of Illinois, Connecticut took a step toward death penalty abolition. On Monday, the Connecticut Judiciary Committee, a joint committee of the House and Senate, held a public hearing on bills that would end execution in the state.

Along with a group of student activists, I traveled to Hartford to attend the public hearing. In the hearing room, we put on red stickers that read, “End the Death Penalty” and joined murder victims’ family members, exonerees, religious leaders, and other members of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty who were there to support abolition.

Eighty-two victims’ family members have signed a letter supporting abolition in Connecticut, and many of those family members offered powerful testimonies before the Judiciary Committee.  This follows on the heels of last month’s powerful press conference where 76 of the victims’ family members first announced their strong endorsement of abolition (see video above).

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Illinois Has Abolished the Death Penalty!

March 9, 2011 at 1:18 PM

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Today, with the signature of Governor Pat Quinn, Illinois became the 16th state to abolish the death penalty, and the third state to do it in four years.  The Governor also commuted the sentences of the 15 men currently residing on Illinois’ death row.  In addition to Governor Quinn, State Senator Kwame Raoul and State Representative Karen Yarbrough were key players in making death penalty abolition a reality in Illinois.  Please take a moment to thank them for their leadership.

No state has made a greater effort to “fix” their broken death penalty than Illinois.  A ten year moratorium on executions was established in January 2000, and since then various commissions and studies have attempted to grapple with the challenge of imposing an irreversible punishment in an error-prone system.  After over a decade of trying, Illinois politicians came to the conclusion that it simply cannot be done – that capital punishment in Illinois is beyond repair.  The system will always be prone to error, and the punishment of death will always be irreversible.

So they did the right thing, and indeed the only logical thing.  They abolished the death penalty.  Folks in other states where the flaws and shortcomings of capital punishment have become painfully clear should look to this example.  What was true in Illinois is equally true in Connecticut, Maryland, Montana, or for that matter any other state that still keeps the death penalty on its books.   The danger of executing the innocent can never be eliminated, the drain on the treasury will always divert resources from proven crime prevention measures, and the toll on the families of victims as they are dragged through a grueling process will always be both severe and completely unnecessary.

The Illinois experience has shown that, for both practical and moral reasons, the death penalty does not work.  It is an irreversible punishment in an imperfect world, and a cruel and degrading punishment in a world where we should be striving to respect and promote human dignity.   By rejecting the death penalty, Illinois has liberated itself from this failed experiment, and has scored a major victory for human rights.