In an opinion for the court, Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote that since the state passed a ban in 2012, it would be unconstitutional to execute the 11 men who had previously received death sentences.
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Gellenbeck said her opposition to capital punishment stems in part from the danger that someone innocent could be put to death, though she is certain Webb murdered her sister. The high court said that Santiago was improperly sentenced to death, but used the case as a means of examining the legality of the General Assembly’s 2012 revision of the death penalty and whether the revision is consistent with two centuries of evolving law and morality in Connecticut.
The latest state to repeal the death penalty was Nebraska.
Yes, you read that correctly: Close to three thousand people have had death sentences pronounced upon them by the federal government or a state government and are waiting to be killed. But the majority wrote that it chose to analyze capital punishment and impose abolition from a broad perspective.
Connecticut passed a law in 2012 to repeal the death penalty, but only for future crimes.
Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano (R-North Haven) said the state’s Supreme Court “stepped way out of line and wrongfully took on the role of policymakers”.
This undated inmate photo released by the Connecticut…
Connecticut has executed only two inmates in the past 54 years, both of whom effectively volunteered for execution by abandoning their appeals.
Although opponents of the death penalty hailed the court’s decision – Dan Barrett, legal director of the ACLU of Connecticut, called it “a breath of fresh air” in death penalty litigation – policymakers were more measured.
“The people writing the bill thought they’d covered that eventuality”.
“We’re very sad. We feel that the way he murdered our grandchild and our daughter-in-law was cruel and heinous and I don’t feel any punishment they could have given him would be too cruel or heinous”.
The governor said the state’s judicial system will seek guidance on the matter but death row inmates “will serve the rest of their life in a Department of Corrections facility with no possibility of ever obtaining freedom”.
“Today is a somber day where our focus should not be on the 11 men sitting on death row, but with their victims and those surviving families members”, he said in the statement. “It therefore offends the state constitutional prohibition against excessive and disproportionate punishment”.
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The decision leaves New Hampshire as the only state in New England where the death penalty remains in effect.
