Connecticut's Death Penalty Bills Open the Door to More Executions
Dublin Core
Title
Connecticut's Death Penalty Bills Open the Door to More Executions
Subject
Connecticut. Capital punishment--United States.
Description
Article in the New York Times describing the passage of new death penalty statues in Connecticut. After years of technically having a death penalty that could not be implemented in practice, Connecticut is about to have a "workable" death penalty. In the article, legal experts describe the danger of such a law while legislators in favor of its passage make comments in attempt to alleviate such concerns.
Creator
Johnson, Kirk
Source
New York Times
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1995-04-10
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
2 jpgs
300 DPI
Language
English
Coverage
Connecticut
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
Connecticut’s Death Penalty Bills Open the Door to More Executions By Kirk Johnson Hartford, April 7 – The State of Connecticut has put six murderers on death row in recent years under a penal code with roots in the harsh doctrines of the 1630’s. But, there has not been an actual execution here since the closing days of the Eisenhower Administration.
Now a package of bills – approved by both the State House and Senate and nearing Gov. John G. Rowland’s enthusiastic signature – would make it significantly easier for juries to impose the death penalty and the state to carry it out.
The new Connecticut law would streamline and shorten the appeals process and broaden the list of crimes that could result in the forfeit of a life.
"We had a death penalty in name only," said State Representative Dale Radcliff, a Republican attorney from Trumbill who helped rewrite the law. "What we did was remove the hypocrisy. This makes the penalty a workable statute."
Some legal experts flatly predict, in fact, that the long unofficial moratorium on executions in the Northeast – the last one anywhere between Pennsylvania and Maine occurred in 1963 – could very likely be broken here.
"Connecticut is going to be the first leak in the dam," said Randall Coyne, a professor of law at the University of Oklahoma and the author of a state-by-state comparison of death penalty legislation.
Experts like Professor Coyne said that although New York State's recent reinstatement of the death penalty has received most of the national attention, Connecticut's tinkering goes further toward making punishment by death a reality. In New York, for example, juries will weigh aggravating factors like the brutality or cruelty of the crime against mitigating factors in the defendants background, like an abusive, tortured childhood. The panel may then decide, after that calculus, that the death penalty is not justified in any event.
In Connecticut, the new law would allow no discretion. If aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors, the die is cast and the sentence is death. If the mitigating factors outweigh or equal the aggravating factors, a second iron-clad choice is required, 60 years to life in prison.
The threshold for weighting the factors will also be lower here. In New York, juries must find that the aggravating factors tiling toward a death sentence substantially outweigh mitigating factors. In Connecticut, an amendment with moderating language similar to New Tork's was defeated, so that even a slight prepoderance of factors working against the defendant could mean a death sentence.
The new law would relieve the Connecticut Supreme Court, which must review all death sentences, of a burdensome and time-consuming survey designed to make sure that the defendant's sentence was not disproportionate to sentences for other similar crimes. Both New York and New Jersey, which reinstituted its death penalty in 1982, require proportion studies to insure that a death sentence was not dictated by passions or other factors peculiar to the defendant's case.
Referring to Connecticut's old death penalty law, Michael Mello, a professor of law at Vermont Law School, and the author of two books on capital punishment, said, "Connecticut had what I would call one of the most careful and reliable capital statutes in the country – they made the decision that we want to err on the side of mercy rather than risk executing innocent people."
The new code, Professor Mello said, "will most Connecticut into the national mainstream, and particularly in the mainstream of the death belt states of the old Confederacy, where the death penalty is now and has been historically much more of a reality and a presence than it has been in the Northeast."
Connecticut's Chief State's Attornery, John M. Bailey, agreed that there will be more death sentences, and he also believes that Connecticut will be the first in the region to carry out an execution. But he said that safeguards remain in place that will still make capital trials more scrupulous than in southern states.
In states like Florida or Texas, Mr. Bailey said, nearly any murder can qualify for consideration as a death penalty case. Connecticut has a preliminary threshold for capital felonies, like limiting the option to crimes like multiple murder, murder during a sex crime, or the murder of a police or corrections officer. The new law would also add another category to the list of possible death penalty cases, the murder of someone under age 16. It would substitute death by lethal chemical injection for the electric chair, which state prison officials have said would have needed $500,000 of refurbishing work.
"We still don't have an easy death penalty," Mr Bailey said. However, he added, using the phrase that most supporters of the bill habitually repeat, the new code, unlike the old one, will be "workable."
" The old law was drawn to make sure that even though we had a death penalty law, no one in fact would ever face the death penalty," he said.
But even the most enthusiastic supporters of the new law concede that years of legal review and court challenges lie ahead. And some also say they feat it may be fraught with Constitutional problems.
Citing one example, Senator George C. Jepsen, the former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that the combination of adding a new category of capital felony – the murder of a child – and at the same time eliminating the Supreme Court's proportionality yest for measuring one case against all others with similar circumstances make appeals based on "arbitrary or capricious," sentencing harder to combat.
"We might put 10 people on death row in the next seven to eight years and have the whole thing thrown out," said Mr. Jepson, who voted for the bills, and who said he will do so again when the package makes one last appearance before the Senate, probably this week, for approval of a final technical change in wording.
Mr. Jepson said he doesn't believe Connecticut will go crazy executing people, partly because in the end, the process will still be left in the hands of jurors who can find reasons not to vote for death. One jury decided against a death sentence in a case several years ago for example, because the defendant's good behavior in prison was considered a mitigating factor.
Now a package of bills – approved by both the State House and Senate and nearing Gov. John G. Rowland’s enthusiastic signature – would make it significantly easier for juries to impose the death penalty and the state to carry it out.
The new Connecticut law would streamline and shorten the appeals process and broaden the list of crimes that could result in the forfeit of a life.
"We had a death penalty in name only," said State Representative Dale Radcliff, a Republican attorney from Trumbill who helped rewrite the law. "What we did was remove the hypocrisy. This makes the penalty a workable statute."
Some legal experts flatly predict, in fact, that the long unofficial moratorium on executions in the Northeast – the last one anywhere between Pennsylvania and Maine occurred in 1963 – could very likely be broken here.
"Connecticut is going to be the first leak in the dam," said Randall Coyne, a professor of law at the University of Oklahoma and the author of a state-by-state comparison of death penalty legislation.
Experts like Professor Coyne said that although New York State's recent reinstatement of the death penalty has received most of the national attention, Connecticut's tinkering goes further toward making punishment by death a reality. In New York, for example, juries will weigh aggravating factors like the brutality or cruelty of the crime against mitigating factors in the defendants background, like an abusive, tortured childhood. The panel may then decide, after that calculus, that the death penalty is not justified in any event.
In Connecticut, the new law would allow no discretion. If aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors, the die is cast and the sentence is death. If the mitigating factors outweigh or equal the aggravating factors, a second iron-clad choice is required, 60 years to life in prison.
The threshold for weighting the factors will also be lower here. In New York, juries must find that the aggravating factors tiling toward a death sentence substantially outweigh mitigating factors. In Connecticut, an amendment with moderating language similar to New Tork's was defeated, so that even a slight prepoderance of factors working against the defendant could mean a death sentence.
The new law would relieve the Connecticut Supreme Court, which must review all death sentences, of a burdensome and time-consuming survey designed to make sure that the defendant's sentence was not disproportionate to sentences for other similar crimes. Both New York and New Jersey, which reinstituted its death penalty in 1982, require proportion studies to insure that a death sentence was not dictated by passions or other factors peculiar to the defendant's case.
Referring to Connecticut's old death penalty law, Michael Mello, a professor of law at Vermont Law School, and the author of two books on capital punishment, said, "Connecticut had what I would call one of the most careful and reliable capital statutes in the country – they made the decision that we want to err on the side of mercy rather than risk executing innocent people."
The new code, Professor Mello said, "will most Connecticut into the national mainstream, and particularly in the mainstream of the death belt states of the old Confederacy, where the death penalty is now and has been historically much more of a reality and a presence than it has been in the Northeast."
Connecticut's Chief State's Attornery, John M. Bailey, agreed that there will be more death sentences, and he also believes that Connecticut will be the first in the region to carry out an execution. But he said that safeguards remain in place that will still make capital trials more scrupulous than in southern states.
In states like Florida or Texas, Mr. Bailey said, nearly any murder can qualify for consideration as a death penalty case. Connecticut has a preliminary threshold for capital felonies, like limiting the option to crimes like multiple murder, murder during a sex crime, or the murder of a police or corrections officer. The new law would also add another category to the list of possible death penalty cases, the murder of someone under age 16. It would substitute death by lethal chemical injection for the electric chair, which state prison officials have said would have needed $500,000 of refurbishing work.
"We still don't have an easy death penalty," Mr Bailey said. However, he added, using the phrase that most supporters of the bill habitually repeat, the new code, unlike the old one, will be "workable."
" The old law was drawn to make sure that even though we had a death penalty law, no one in fact would ever face the death penalty," he said.
But even the most enthusiastic supporters of the new law concede that years of legal review and court challenges lie ahead. And some also say they feat it may be fraught with Constitutional problems.
Citing one example, Senator George C. Jepsen, the former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that the combination of adding a new category of capital felony – the murder of a child – and at the same time eliminating the Supreme Court's proportionality yest for measuring one case against all others with similar circumstances make appeals based on "arbitrary or capricious," sentencing harder to combat.
"We might put 10 people on death row in the next seven to eight years and have the whole thing thrown out," said Mr. Jepson, who voted for the bills, and who said he will do so again when the package makes one last appearance before the Senate, probably this week, for approval of a final technical change in wording.
Mr. Jepson said he doesn't believe Connecticut will go crazy executing people, partly because in the end, the process will still be left in the hands of jurors who can find reasons not to vote for death. One jury decided against a death sentence in a case several years ago for example, because the defendant's good behavior in prison was considered a mitigating factor.
Original Format
Newspaper
Contributor of the Digital Item
Hiser, Kristopher
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Williams, Megan
Files
Citation
Johnson, Kirk, “Connecticut's Death Penalty Bills Open the Door to More Executions,” HIST299, accessed March 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/154.