State And Federal Info
In colonial Connecticut, capital crimes included idolatry, witchcraft, and blasphemy.
The first person executed for witchcraft in what is now the United States was Achsah Young, who was executed in Hartford in 1647.
In 1786, Hannah Occuish, a 12-year-old Native American girl, was hanged in New London for the murder of a young white girl. She may have been the youngest person ever executed in the United States.
The last person executed in Connecticut who had exhausted all appeals was Frank Wojulewicz, who was executed in 1959 for murdering a police officer and bystander while committing a robbery. The two men executed since then both dropped appeals and “volunteered” for execution.
Connecticut is one of five states that gives clemency authority to a board, rather than the governor. No death row prisoner was granted clemency during the period in which the death penalty had been reinstated.
In 2009, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill to abolish the death penalty, but the bill was vetoed by Governor M. Jodi Rell.
In 2012, Connecticut abolished the death penalty for future crimes. Eleven men remained on death row until 2015, when the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 4-3 in State v. Santiago that the death penalty violated the state constitution. The Court indicated at that time that the remaining death row prisoners were entitled to be resentenced to life without parole. However, after one of the justices in the Santiago majority left the Court, prosecutors sought and were granted permission to re-open the issue. On May 26, 2016, in State v. Peeler, the Court reaffirmed its holding in Santiago by a vote of 5-2.
The remaining death-row prisoners were resentenced one at a time, as their cases were decided in the lower courts. On December 6, 2018, Richard Roszkowski became the last of the eleven formerly death-row prisoners to be formally resentenced to life without possibility of release.
Connecticut carried out only one execution in the modern era of the death penalty. Michael Ross was executed by lethal injection in 2005 after giving up his appeals.
Victims' Families
Feb 01, 2019
Efforts to repeal the death penalty have often focused on the needs of murder victims’ families. For example, in Connecticut, 179 murder victims’ families signed a letter to legislators, which stated, Our direct experiences with …
Sentencing Alternatives
Nov 01, 2018
Life Without Parole Laws in States That Recently Repealed the Death Penalty…
Deterrence
Jan 12, 2018
States that have recently abolished the death penalty have not experienced the “parade of horribles” — including increased murder rates — predicted by death-penalty proponents, according to death-penalty experts who participated in a panel discussion …
Arbitrariness
May 27, 2016
In a 5 – 2 decision issued May 26, the Connecticut Supreme Court reaffirmed its August 2015 decision in State v. Santiago that the death penalty viola…
Victims' Families
Jan 25, 2016
Dawn Mancarella, whose mother, Joyce Masury, was murdered 20 years ago, called the death penalty “a waste of energy and money [that] doesn’t bring justice or closure.” Sharing her views on the death penalty in a column for Connecticut’s Regist…
Arbitrariness
Jan 11, 2016
On January 7, the Connecticut Supreme Court heard arguments in State of Connecticut v. Russell Peeler, in which state prosecutors are seeking to overturn the court’s 4 – 3 decision last summer declaring Connecticut’s death penalty unconstit…
Arbitrariness
Sep 03, 2015
In an op-ed for The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winning legal commentator Linda Greenhouse analyzes the significance of and interplay between the recent Connecticut Supreme Co…
Arbitrariness
Aug 13, 2015
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on August 13 that the death penalty violates the state constitution. In the 4 – 3 decision, the Court said that, because of the
Arbitrariness
Nov 19, 2014
In a recent editorial, the Washington Post urged Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley to commute the sentences of the four men remaining on the state’s death row, saying, “To carry out executions post-repeal would be both cr…
Race
Sep 03, 2014
Baptist minister and civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton spoke in opposition to the death penalty in a recent debate at the Yale Political Union. Sharpton noted the dispropotion of blacks…
