A retired prison war­den, vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, and a for­mer death row inmate were among the near­ly 75 speak­ers at a state Judiciary Committee hear­ing in Hartford, almost all of whom pro­posed end­ing Connecticut’s death penal­ty. Many of the wit­ness­es not­ed that the death penal­ty brings no relief to vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, fails to deter mur­der, risks inno­cent lives, and is applied in an arbi­trary way.

​“I’m here to tell you that I nev­er met an inmate for whom I had no hope,” said Mary Morgan Wolff, a for­mer state deputy war­den who worked 37 years for the state Department of Corrections.

Laurence Adams, a for­mer death row inmate from Massachusetts, told the com­mit­tee that he was freed in 2004 by long-for­got­ten evi­dence prov­ing his inno­cence. ​“I’m here today because Massachusetts abol­ished the death penal­ty,” he not­ed as he described his 30 years in prison for a crime he did not com­mit and the like­li­hood that he would have been exe­cut­ed long before his recent exon­er­a­tion if the state had not end­ed capital punishment. 

During lat­er tes­ti­mo­ny, Elizabeth Brancato said that despite her ini­tial rage and belief that the man who mur­dered her moth­er should be exe­cut­ed, she lat­er con­clud­ed that his exe­cu­tion would not bring her peace.

Testimony from Connecticut’s chief pub­lic defend­er not­ed that of the 69 peo­ple who have been con­vict­ed in Connecticut of cap­i­tal crimes, only sev­en are on death row and six of those men were pros­e­cut­ed in one juris­dic­tion. ​“The deter­mi­na­tion of who lives and who dies is total­ly sub­jec­tive and con­trolled by a vari­ety of arbi­trary fac­tors,” said Gerard Smyth.

(Hartford Courant, February 1, 2005). See Life Without Parole, Innocence, and Victims.

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