The Hartford Courant has called for an end to the death penal­ty in Connecticut, cit­ing its costs and risks. The paper called a leg­isla­tive committee’s work toward abol­ish­ing Connecticut’s death penal­ty ​“brave,” and said the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem was ​“unwork­able, not to men­tion expen­sive, unfair, and risky.” They quot­ed State Sen. Mary Anne Handley who said: ​“The death penal­ty is nei­ther swift nor cer­tain. It may even be cer­tain that it’s not going to hap­pen.” The edi­to­r­i­al con­clud­ed, ​“The state’s goal should be to keep soci­ety safe. It can accom­plish that with­out the expec­ta­tion of exe­cu­tions that rarely if ever take place.” The full edi­to­r­i­al may be read below:

Do Away With Death Penalty

LAW UNWORKABLE • Changes would low­er costs, emotional toll


A leg­isla­tive com­mit­tee has tak­en a brave step toward abol­ish­ing Connecticut’s death penal­ty, a law that is all but unwork­able, not to men­tion expen­sive, unfair and risky.

By unfair, we refer to the lop­sided appli­ca­tion of such laws nation­wide. Minorities make up more than half of death row inmates.
By risky, we mean that 130 death row inmates have been exon­er­at­ed around the nation in the past decade. There is evi­dence that oth­ers who were exe­cut­ed might have been inno­cent.

By expen­sive, we refer to the cost of the end­less appeals that make Connecticut’s law practically unworkable.

Finally, the death penal­ty puts the state in the moral­ly com­pro­mis­ing posi­tion of com­mit­ting the act for which it is punishing someone.

Everyone is enti­tled to due process, even con­vict­ed killers. Michael Ross, the only death row inmate to be exe­cut­ed in Connecticut in decades, asked to die. Yet his case was made only after it was laid out again and again in ago­niz­ing detail that must have been hor­ri­bly hard on the fam­i­lies of his victims.

State Sen. Mary Anne Handley said it best: ​“The death penal­ty is nei­ther swift nor cer­tain. It may even be cer­tain that it’s not going to happen.”

It is hear-trend­ing to hear the tes­ti­mo­ny of Dr. William Petit Jr., whose wife and daugh­ters were tor­ment­ed and mur­dered in a 2007 home inva­sion. He favors the death penal­ty for the killers and views any­thing less as an injus­tice. It is not dif­fi­cult to sym­pa­thize with his plight.

But the state has an oblig­a­tion to sep­a­rate jus­tice from revenge. Changes in the law approved by the Judiciary Committee and head­ed for a House vote would bring swifter clo­sure for vic­tims by con­sign­ing those con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal crimes to life in prison with­out parole. Locking up a killer for the rest of his days, where he can pon­der his crime and his fate, seems a more potent pun­ish­ment than putting him out of his misery.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has restat­ed her belief in the death penal­ty, fore­shad­ow­ing a veto should the changes go through. She should take her cues from New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Last month, he signed a law repeal­ing his state’s death penal­ty even though he per­son­al­ly sup­ports it. He cit­ed the error-prone judi­cial sys­tem, not­ing the death row inmates who have been exon­er­at­ed in the past decade, includ­ing four in New Mexico.

The state’s goal should be to keep soci­ety safe. It can accom­plish that with­out the expec­ta­tion of exe­cu­tions that rarely if ever take place.

(Editorial, ​“Do away with the death penal­ty,” Hartford Courant, April 7, 2009). See Editorials and Recent Legislative Activity.

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