Nancy Filiault, whose sis­ter was mur­dered in 2000, tes­ti­fied that she oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because the legal process fur­ther trau­ma­tizes vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. At the con­clu­sion of a Judiciary Committee hear­ing on leg­is­la­tion intro­duced to replace Connecticut’s death penal­ty with a life-with­out-parole sen­tence, Filiault said that sit­ting through the cap­i­tal tri­al of the man charged with the mur­der was ​“heinous, incred­i­bly cru­el, and trau­ma­tiz­ing.” The defen­dant, who con­fessed to the crime, was will­ing to plead guilty almost imme­di­ate­ly if the state agreed to give him a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Prosecutors, how­ev­er, insist­ed on seek­ing the death penal­ty, a deci­sion that result­ed in fam­i­ly mem­bers hav­ing to endure near­ly four years of pre-tri­al prepa­ra­tions and weeks of tri­al. At the con­clu­sion of the tri­al, the defen­dant received the same life-with­out-parole sen­tence he had orig­i­nal­ly request­ed. Filiault, who said she is strug­gling to find for­give­ness for him, stat­ed, ​“I am opposed to the death penal­ty, and I would like to see it abol­ished.… The judi­cial process does not work.” 

(New Haven Advocate, February 10, 2005).

See Victims, Life Without Parole, and New Voices.

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