On April 23, the Connecticut Supreme Court will con­sid­er whether the 11 inmates who remained on the state’s row after the leg­is­la­ture vot­ed to repeal the death penal­ty in 2012 can still be exe­cut­ed. Mark Rademacher, an attor­ney for one of the inmates, argued that the legislature’s repeal of the death penal­ty demon­strat­ed the pun­ish­ment is no longer nec­es­sary and, hence, exe­cut­ing his client would be cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Rademacher also assert­ed that the law’s prospec­tive nature vio­lates the equal pro­tec­tion clause of the Constitution because it sin­gles out a small group of defen­dants for the death penal­ty, while dic­tat­ing a life sen­tence for defen­dants in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions. Brian Stull, of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, not­ed in his ami­cus brief that, ​“No state has exe­cut­ed a pris­on­er after repeal­ing the death penal­ty. We just think it’s so impor­tant for the court to know Connecticut would be the first state to, and that’s not a stat any state wants to take.” The state has argued it was the clear intent of the leg­is­la­ture to only have the law apply to future cases.

Rademacher’s client, Eduardo Santiago, had his death senence over­turned, but faced re-sen­tenc­ing. He is not cur­rent­ly under a sen­tence of death.

(C. Nolan, ​“Lawyers Argue Against Death Sentence in Murder-for-Hire Case,” Connecticut Law Tribune, April 20, 2013. See Arbitrariness and Recent Legislation.

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