April 11, 2012

DEATH PENALTY DEAD....HOUSE PUTS END TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

By Paul Hughes, Republican-American

HARTFORD — The death penalty’s days are numbered after nearly 400 years in Connecticut now that the legislature has voted to abolish capital punishment.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is willing to sign the bill that the House passed 86-62 Wednesday night. The Senate approved the bill last week.

“I never thought in my years here that this would happen,” said Rep. Patricia Dillon, D-New Haven, a lawmaker since 1985 and a death penalty opponent.

The legislation prospectively repeals the death penalty and punishes what have been capital crimes with life sentences without the possiblity of release. It takes effect immediately upon the governor’s approval.

The bill reclassifies capital crimes as murder with special circumstances. It sets strict conditions for anyone convicted of this crime, including any inmates whose death sentences may be commuted after the change in law takes effect.

There is a dispute over whether the legislation willl permit the 11 inmates on death row today to have their sentences commuted on appeal.

“Let’s not mislead the public. Let’s not mislead ourselves. If it is the will of this chamber that this state is no longer in the business of executing people, then let’s say it and do it,” said House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk. “You cannot have it both ways.”

House Republicans highlighted the paradox throughout the prolonged debate. Some Democrats also underscored this inconsistency, too.

“It is a very curious moral position. That is the morality changes depending upon when it is applied,” said Rep. John W. Hetherington, R-New Canaan, the ranking House Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

Lawmakers on both sides acknowledged that the legislature would not approve a bill that applies retroactively.

“We have ways of proposing bills that overcome the difficulty of getting something passed and that is what we have in front of us,” said Rep. Larry B. Butler, D-72nd District.

He lost a younger brother to murder in 1985. He said he cannot join other lawmakers in the same position who have come to oppose capital punishment.

“I cannot get over the loss of my brother,” the Waterbury lawmaker said.

Although his brother’s murder was not a capital crime, he said he does not want to see the death penalty abolished.

“It boils down to one word, one word — justice. Don’t want revenge. It is not about vengeance. It is about justice,” Butler said.

Rep. Gary A. Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, argued that capital punishment is applied inconsistently because only 11 murderers have been sentenced to death.

According to the Department of Correction, slightly more than 700 inmates were serving sentences for murder at the start of the year, including some convicted of capital crimes.

“The majoritiy of the people who have committed the worst of the worst crimes are not on death row and we call that justice,” Holder-Winfield said.

He said it is illogical to tell opponents of death penalty not to settle for a prospective repeal because total abolition is not possible.

Rep. Arthur J. O’Neill, R-Southbury, and other supporters of capital punishment argued that the death penalty does deter murder and other crimes. Rep. Marie Kirkley-Bey, D-Hartford, rejected that argument.

“There’s not a person in Connecticut who committed a crime, a murder, who said ‘I’m not going to do that because they have the death penalty,’” she said. “I don’t believe that and, if you do, you’re crazy.”

A retired Waterbury police officer, Rep. Jeffery J. Berger, D-73rd District, asked opponents to redirect their energy and efforts into making the death penalty workable, including limiting appeals.

“Working together we could come up with a plan that works,” Berger said.

He recounted the victims of the four inmates on death row who committed their crimes in Waterbury, a mother and her teenage son, a 23-year-old Christmas shopper and a 14year-old boy who were lured to their deaths, and a city police officer who was a close friend.

“Let’s not abandon this tool we have, and, with all due respect to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and my colleagues who are for repeal, think about these stories, think about these families, think about what we do today,” Berger said.

The 11 inmates on death row include Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, the two men convicted of murdering the family of Dr. William A. Petit Jr. during an invasion of their Cheshire home nearly five years ago.

Komisarjevsky and Hayes broke into the family’s home, beat Petit nearly to death and tied him up, and then held his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and the couple’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, before murdering them hours later. Hawke-Petit and Michaela were also sexually assaulted.

Rep. Alfred C. Adinolfi, R-Cheshire, was a neighbor of the Petit family. He said Komisarjevsky, Hayes and the others on death row deserve the penalty they are facing now.

“We in this chamber are showing sympathy for the murderers and not sympathy for the victims’ family. We’re wrong,” he said.

Adinolfi described the Petit family murders in detail, including how Hayley and Michaela died in a fire that was set after their mother was strangled to death.

“And, we say here that Komisarjevsky and Hayes don’t deserve the death penalty. Shame on us,” he said.