RECENT LEGISLATION: Death Penalty Repeal Passes Second Connecticut House, Awaits Governor’s Signature

On April 11, the Connecticut House of Representatives passed (86 – 62) a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty for future crimes. The same bill passed the Connecticut Senate on April 5. Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign the bill, which will make Connecticut the 17^th state to abol­ish the death penal­ty, and the 5^th to do so in the last 5 years. In a state­ment released after the House vote, Gov. Malloy said, ​“When I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 16 oth­er states and almost every oth­er indus­tri­al­ized nation in mov­ing toward what I believe is bet­ter pub­lic pol­i­cy.” During the lengthy debate on the bill, leg­is­la­tors dis­cussed issues of cost, deter­rence, and inno­cence, as well as their moral con­vic­tions on the issue. Rep. Auden Grogins (D‑Bridgeport) said, ​“The law is cost­ly, can be arbi­trar­i­ly applied and does not pro­duce accu­rate results. It is not unusu­al for the legal process, from the begin­ning to the end, to take 20 years.” Rep. Terry Backer (D‑Stratford) voiced con­cerns about wrong­ful con­vic­tions, say­ing, ​“We have an imper­fect sys­tem and there are many mis­takes we make as gov­ern­ment. Unfortunately, when we are wrong in these cas­es, there is no way to put them back on track.”

Connecticut cur­rent­ly has 11 peo­ple on death row. Because the bill is prospec­tive, it will not affect those sen­tences. Only one exe­cu­tion has been car­ried out since Connecticut rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1973. Michael Ross dropped his appeals and was exe­cut­ed in 2005. The oth­er states to recent­ly abol­ish the death penal­ty are New Jersey, New York, New Mexico and Illinois. Michigan was the first state to abol­ish the death penal­ty in 1847.

(K. Dixon, ​“State House votes to repeal death penal­ty,” Connecticut Post, April 12, 2012; ​“GOVERNOR MALLOY STATEMENT ON FINAL PASSAGE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT REPEAL LEGISLATION,” Press Release, April 12, 2012.) See Recent Legislative Activity and Connecticut. For facts and quotes from lead­ers in Connecticut, see Death Penalty at a Glance.