Is the death penalty a deterrence and just dessert for those convicted? Is it just deterrence or is it justice for victims? Can it be both? Is the criminal justice system fair enough to make sure that innocent people are not wrongfully accused? Is the appeals process lengthy, but fair or is just lengthy but never actually weeds out those who are wrongfully convicted? Are criminal investigations of crimes like murder or rape with aggravating circumstances today including DNA and other technology so much different than in the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s? In Connecticut who decides who is put to death a jury or a judge? Should the jury know what the result of their conviction is, when the conviction may result in a punishment such as the Death Penalty? Post your thoughts please.
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State House Votes To Abolish Death Penalty -- Courant.com
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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
State House Votes To Abolish Death Penalty
House Would End Death Penalty; Rell Vows To Keep It
By CHRISTOPHER
KEATING
The Hartford Courant
May 14, 2009
The state House of Representatives voted to abolish the death penalty on Wednesday — the fourth anniversary of the execution of serial killer Michael Ross — and instead impose life in prison without the possibility of release.
The historic vote, 90-56, came at about 7:45 p.m. after more than five hours of passionate debate. Lawmakers argued whether the death penalty is necessary for justice or is a punishment that should never be rendered by state government.
Despite the House vote, the chances of the death penalty being eliminated in Connecticut are slim. Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell repeated her support for capital punishment this week as the House prepared for the debate.
"I have always said that I support the death penalty because I do believe that there are some crimes that are so heinous that the death penalty is the only option," Rell told reporters at the state Capitol complex. "I believe in the death penalty.
"I don't consider it revenge. It's justice."
While she maintained her traditional practice of declining to use the term "veto," Rell made it clear that she supports the current law.
The House vote marked a major shift from 1995, when Gov. John G. Rowland and the Republican-controlled state Senate strengthened the death penalty law. Since then, Democrats — many of whom support eliminating the death penalty — have steadily gained seats in the legislature, even winning elections in formerly Republican suburbs like Simsbury and Madison. Democrats currently control both chambers of the General Assembly and have their largest majority in the House since the post-Watergate era.
In past years, attempts to abolish the death penalty fell far short of the 76 votes needed in the 151-member House. But Wednesday's vote represented a wide margin in voting and a significant swing in the chamber's stance on the issue. Five Republicans broke with their caucus to vote in favor of abolition, joining 85 Democrats.
Some legislators, on both sides of the issue, told stories about relatives who were murdered and how the crimes affected their lives and their views on punishment.
Rep. Larry B. Butler, a Waterbury Democrat who voted against abolition, talked on the House floor about the murder of his brother, a father with young children. His brother's death still affects him today, he said, as well as his siblings.
"I lost a brother — a brother that was taken from me 24 years ago," Butler said. "I don't want retribution. I want justice. ... I beg of you. Let's think about the rights of the families of the victims. I will not stand here and support any initiatives for murderers."
Those supporting the ban said Connecticut is one of two states in New England to maintain the death penalty. Among New England states, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and Maine do not have capital punishment. Nationwide, 35 of 50 states have the death penalty. During the past five years, three states have abolished the death penalty: New York, New Jersey and New Mexico.
Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, co-chairman of the judiciary committee, argued that the public is gradually moving away from support of capital punishment."About a third of the people in the state are totally against the death penalty no matter what, and about a third of the people in the state are totally for the death penalty no matter what," Lawlor said, adding that the remaining third are less certain about the issue.
A strong opponent of capital punishment, Lawlor believes the government should not have the authority to take someone's life.
"I think it's a little dangerous to give that power to the government," Lawlor said in the Hall of the House. "Before you know it, you're executing people for political reasons."
On the House floor Wednesday, Lawlor was countered by Republican leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk, who spoke against House Bill 6578.
"I have often said, when asked, that I support the Connecticut death penalty," Cafero said. "There are many reasons that one might support the death penalty."
Cafero said he, unlike some Republicans, doesn't believe the death penalty is a deterrent to crime because heinous murders are often committed in acts of passion without forethought.
"I do not believe that before somebody commits a capital murder as we describe it" that they think about the consequences, Cafero said. "I do not believe before they do that, they stop and say, 'Does this state have a death penalty?' I do not believe it is a deterrent."
"It is about justice."
The debate began at about 2:35 p.m. Wednesday and lasted into the evening. Legislators mentioned notorious killings in the state, including the deaths of three members of Dr. William Petit Jr.'s family in Cheshire and the recent fatal shooting of a Wesleyan University student in Middletown.
Connecticut currently has 10 men on death row, and the horrific details of their crimes were outlined on the House floor. They include Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb, who was sentenced in 1991 after being convicted of the rape and murder of 23-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown.Also on death row are Richard Reynolds, a crack dealer from Brooklyn, N.Y., who killed Waterbury police Officer Walter Williams of Wolcott, by shooting him in the back of the head, and Todd Rizzo, a former U.S. Marine who was convicted of bludgeoning to death a 13-year-old boy, Stanley Edwards, with a 3-pound sledgehammer.
Rep. Steven Mikutel, D-Griswold, said the death penalty is needed because state and local police can't keep everyone safe.
"They didn't protect Michael Ross from killing those young girls in my district," Mikutel said. "I knew those girls. I knew their families. They used to ride their bikes on the road I live on. They stopped riding their bikes because Michael Ross kidnapped them and killed them. ... To this day, mothers and fathers do not allow children to ride their bikes on country roads in eastern Connecticut. We need to take back the streets from these criminals."
Some conservative Democrats, including Rep. Jeffrey Berger of Waterbury and Rep. Stephen Dargan of West Haven, voted with the Republicans against abolition.
Berger, a former police officer, noted that death row inmates, who must remain in their cells 23 hours per day, get three free meals per day, free health care and clothes.
"The individuals who are on death row have it pretty good," Berger said. "That's a pretty good life for life."
But Reps. Jack F. Hennessy and Christopher Caruso, both Bridgeport Democrats, said that the state should not be involved in executing anyone.
"The death penalty is vengeance, and we as a people are better than that," Hennessy said. "We shouldn't kill."
Journal Inquirer
House votes to abolish death penalty
But supporters acknowledge it's not likely to happen this year
By Keith M. Phaneuf
Journal Inquirer
Published: Thursday, May 14, 2009 10:19 AM EDT
HARTFORD — The House of Representatives voted Wednesday by a wide margin to take Connecticut in a historic new direction by abolishing the death penalty.
The action came four years to the day after the state’s last capital punishment was imposed, the execution by lethal injection of serial killer Michael Ross.
But the legislation’s fate remains largely in doubt. It still must clear the Senate, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell has said she remains convinced Connecticut should retain the death penalty.
Still, the House — which rejected abolishing the death penalty by an 89-60 vote in 2005 during its last capital punishment debate — voted 90-56 Wednesday to eliminate the death penalty following a nearly six-hour discussion.
Though abolition advocates concede they don’t expect the bill to become law this year, they hailed the vote as a huge step.
“We are realizing that in a democratic society, we don’t kill people as a means of punishment,” said Kimberly Harrison of Manchester, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ.
Democrats hold a two-thirds majority in the House, but held a similar margin four years ago. The big difference now, advocates said, has been an infusion of new, younger lawmakers opposed to capital punishment.
“This by itself is a victory, regardless of what happens in the Senate,” said Benjamin Jones, head of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. “I just think the argument has finally gotten to people. Even people who might support it in principle, they look at the system and they say, ‘It’s not working, and can we fix it?’ And the simple answer is: ‘No, we can’t fix it.’”
New Mexico this year became the second state to abolish the death penalty through legislative action since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate capital punishment in 1976. New Jersey became the first in 2007.
Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, a veteran lawmaker, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and longtime opponent of the death penalty, argued that Connecticut’s lengthy appeals process makes it all but impossible to execute anyone who doesn’t want to die.
Ross, a Brooklyn, Conn., native who admitted to killing eight young women in eastern Connecticut in the 1980s, declined to exercise all of his appeals and said he wanted to be executed. Prior to Ross, Connecticut hadn’t executed an inmate since 1960.
A ‘dangerous’ power
“I think it’s a little dangerous to give that kind of power to governments,” Lawlor said of the death penalty, adding that the current system also misleads the families of crime victims into believing executions are likely.
Lawlor said he doubts any of the men on death row would exhaust their appeals for many years, and might not even face execution. Some committed their crimes, as Ross did, in the 1980s.
“In Connecticut, we’re never really going to execute someone against their will,” said Lawlor, who supports the bill. “Don’t we owe it to the citizens of our state and the families of the victims to tell them the truth?”
But supporters of the death penalty contend most Connecticut residents oppose abolishing capital punishment, especially following some high-profile murders — such as the 2007 home invasion that left a Cheshire mother and her two daughters dead and the recent fatal shooting of a 21-year-old Wesleyan student.
Rep. Pamela Z. Sawyer, R-Bolton, recalled the terror in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s as the crimes later attributed to Ross remained unsolved. As a mother with young children at the time, Sawyer said, she and many others felt a fear that changed their lives.
“You make a decision in this life, and one of them is to decide whether there is evil in this world,” she said. “I made that decision.”
House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero, R-Norwalk, cited the comments of Todd Rizzo, one of 10 men on death row in Connecticut, who admitted to bludgeoning a 13-year-old boy to death with a sledge hammer because he “wanted to see what it felt like.”
Cafero said the death penalty should be difficult to impose and employed only in response to the most heinous of crimes. But, he added, the ultimate sanction isn’t about revenge, deterring crime, or saving incarceration costs — but about justice.
“When you put a human face on the people and families who have suffered and the circumstances surrounding these murders, there is only one conclusion,” he said.
Others argued that it’s time for the state to move in a different direction.
Rep. Diana S. Urban’s brother was murdered at age 26. But she urged the House to pass the legislation.
Urban, a Democrat from North Stonington, said she couldn’t support killing another person for her brother’s death. Instead, Urban said, she feels there is justice in knowing “that person would be in prison for the rest of their days, to know that every day that they woke up, they have to know that they took a precious, precious life away.”
Rep. Juan R. Candelaria, D-New Haven, told lawmakers about how his grandmother was raped, beaten, and suffocated. While acknowledging he likely would have killed the murderer at the time, Candelaria said, he now questions the accuracy of death sentences and the effectiveness of capital punishment.
“If the death penalty is deter crime, then our state, our beautiful state, would be free of murders,” he said.
Advocates for abolition said Wednesday it’s questionable whether the Democrat-controlled Senate would vote to end capital punishment.
And Rell told reporters Tuesday that she remains convinced that the death penalty is appropriate in rare circumstances, involving the most violent and heinous of crimes.
This story includes Associated Press reporting.
Copyright © 2009 - Journal Inquirer
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