Posted on 04/12/2012 12:03:03 PM PDT by matt04
On an 86-62 vote, the House of Representatives gave final legislative approval Wednesday night to a bill repealing the death penalty for future crimes, leaving Connecticut one step away from becoming the 17th state to abolish capital punishment.
The bill, which Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has pledged to sign, advanced after a 9 1/2-hour debate focused largely on a provision that still mandates capital punishment for Connecticut's 11 death row inmates.
The bill passed with votes from 78 of 99 Democrats and eight of 52 Republicans. Senate Democrats passed the bill 20-16 last week, with two Democrats joining all 14 Republicans in opposition.
In place of the existing crime of capital felony, the bill creates a new crime of murder with special circumstances, punishable by life in prison without chance of release.
...
Minority Republicans focused much of their opposition to a controversial legal assertion first offered by Malloy during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign: that Connecticut could repeal capital punishment for future crimes without lifting that penalty for those already on death row.
Only New Mexico has a similar law.
...
"I'm pleased the House passed the bill, and when it gets to my desk I will sign it," Malloy wrote in a statement released immediately after the vote. "I want to be careful in the tone of my remarks, out of respect for the gravity of the issue at hand and out of respect for people on both sides of the issue.
"When I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 16 other states and almost every other industrialized nation in moving toward what I believe is better public policy...."
(Excerpt) Read more at ctmirror.org ...
Some background on the rest of the current DR inmates, excluding Hayes and Komisarjevsky. Thanks Bridgeport!
Jessie Campbell III, sentenced 9/5/2000: Campbell was convicted of capital felony, murder, attempted murder, first-degree assault and weapons violations for Aug. 26, 2000, shooting deaths in Hartford of 20-year-old LaTaysha Logan and 18-year-old Desiree Privette; and the shooting of Privette's aunt, Carolyn Privette.
Robert Breton, sentenced 10/27/1989: Breton was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of capital felony for the Dec. 13, 1987, beating and stabbing deaths of his 38-year-old ex-wife and their 16-year-old son in Waterbury.
Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb, sentenced 8/13/1991: Cobb, a former delivery man from Naugatuck, was convicted of capital felony, kidnapping, murder, sexual assault and robbery in the Dec. 16, 1989, attack on 23-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown.
Russell Peeler Jr., sentenced 12/10/2007: Peeler was convicted of ordering the 1999 killing of 8-year-old Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr. and his mother, Karen Clarke, in their Bridgeport duplex. The boy was expected to be the key witness against Peeler in the fatal shooting of Clarke's boyfriend.
Richard Reynolds, sentenced 4/13/1995: A Brooklyn, N.Y., crack dealer, Reynolds was convicted in the Dec. 18, 1992, murder of Waterbury police Officer Walter T. Williams.
Daniel Webb, sentenced 9/12/1991: Webb was convicted of kidnapping and murder for the 1989 slaying in Hartford of Diane Gellenbeck, a 37-year-old Connecticut National Bank vice president.
Eduardo Santiago, sentenced 1/31/2005: Santiago was convicted on capital felony and murder charges after shooting Joseph Niwinksi in the left temple as he slept in his apartment. Prosecutors say he carried out the murder-for-hire scheme in exchange for a snowmobile.
Todd Rizzo, sentenced 6/23/2005: Rizzo confessed was convicted in the 1997 murder of 13-year-old Stanley Edwards pf Waterbury. He lured Edwards into his backyard under the guise of hunting snakes, and then hit him 13 times with a 3-pound sledgehammer.
Lazale Ashby, sentenced 3/28/2008: Ashby was convicted of raping and murdering his 21-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Garcia, in her apartment on Dec. 2, 2002. The crime occurred four days after his 18th birthday.
Source: http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-deathrow-pg,0,871806.photogallery
With the stroke of his pen, Malloy has just declared that the lives of every gallows bird in Connecticut is worth more than the lives of its citizens.
In the name of justice, one of the Ten Commandments needs revision.
Belligerent little Marxist and his brain dead ‘progressive’ legislators are passing more terrible legislation than has been seen in 25 years. Anyone with any sense is planning to move out of state.
I currently live in CT. Luckily I live near the MA border where I can buy cheaper gas (high $3.80 vs over $4.10), bottled water with out a deposit, etc. while moving options are considered. Local and chain business get more of my money in MA than CT.
Malloy wants all those lucrative federal Obagrants to build large prisons or criminal retirement homes, to house all of those lifer murderers and gain a little vigorish for his campaign coffers from his Crooked Connecticut Construction Connection.
The pool table supply contracts alone will net Malloy millions.
“moving toward what I believe is better public policy....”
Yeah, sticking the Connecticut taxpayers with the cost of housing, feeding and entertaining convicted murderers for the next 40 years or so at $60,000+ per year.
Why is it considered more humane to confine a man to an iron box until he stops breathing, rather than simply putting him to death??
I have asked several libs I know that question. They can never answer it.
Yup. I’m doing the same thing when able.. 20 miles south of the line. Malloy is guaranteed taking orders as he ladder climes his way into the Marxist hierarchy.
A justice system without the death penalty is a mere pretense.
It is barbarism.
I am perfectly fine with this bill. If that’s how Connecticut wants to do things, then brilliant. That’s exactly how the separate states were intended to function.
I suggest New Hampshire.That's gonna be my home very soon.No income tax,no sales tax and the southeastern part of the state (Nashua,Salem,etc) is just a not-that-distant suburb of Boston.Of course if you're a Yankees/Mets/Giants/Jets/Rangers fan you're gonna have to change your allegiances! ;-)
Actually the commandment states “thou thall not murder”, not the commonly held belief that “thou thall not kill.”
There are some excellent scholalarly articles on that subject.
I hate my state.
Michigan has never had the death penalty. That might explain some of the crimes here.
“I hate my state.”
Ct went straight to hell the day Lowell Weicker imposed the income tax in the dark of night. I stood outside the state house with 50,000 others screaming F U!
The other 49,999 now live in Fla as will I soon.
I predict the number of heinous murders will go up in Connecticut.
I’ll never forget someone saying they heard some murderous scumbag boast before a crime spree, “they don’t kill ‘em in New Jersey!” (or whatever state it was).
Enjoy your higher murder rate, Connecticut....because that is the environment you’ve created.
States without the death penalty have lower murder rates than states with.
If you live in a state where serious crime rarely happens.. you are far more likely to be against serious punishment. But when you are afraid to leave your home for fear of being murdered... you tend to embrace capital punishment.
Capital punishment is justice, nothing more or less.
I tell ya I might move to FL when I retire which isn’t that far off.
Yes, but it is surprising that CT even had a “death penalty” law in the first place. People there compete with neighboring states to be labled “the most liberal of them all.”
Exactly.
I’ve met many so called republicans from the north east who have moved out and to their surprise they are stunned to find that most down south consider them as Dems than republicans because of their views of homosexuals, cross dressers etc and their agenda.
It would be nice though if every proper conservative moved out of the north east and the west coast and then moved to the swing states thus making those swing states more conservative, gain more tax money, electoral count etc.
Imagine it 3 million proper conservatives moving out to places like NM, CO, etc leaving their liberal states with less money , less electoral count etc .
you think this vote would have been done a week after those two guys broke into the house, and killed most of the family?
I don’t
what part because I am here and trust me south of I-4 is like the north east unless you look at the south west part.?
We need all the proper social and fiscal conservative we can get.
I love it here,taxes, gun laws, infact in my county we do not have one county official who is a Dem and is one of the most republican counties in the state.
Course some from up where you are don’t like it here in north east FL because they think the confederate battle flag is bad and they see it every day and my message to them is tough.
Bleeding heart liberals. Let their salaries be garnished to pay for the upkeep of the scum who need to be removed from the planet.
Genesis 9Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
Not optional. Never revised or rescinded. An imperative command given to all mankind.
With the nihilistic scream of the Marxist Zealot, Connecticut bellows,
“There is nothing whatsoever that we value.”
I found a “violent crime” ranking from the census bureau.
Michigan ranks 10th.
Rhode Island 44th.
Wisconsin 32nd.
Maine 50th.
Minnesota 30th.
Massachusetts 20th.
Alaska 6th.
Hawaii 36th.
Vermont 48th.
West Virgina 39th.
Iowa 33rd.
D.C., if it were a state, would be #1.
North Dakota is 49th.
New York is 22nd.
New Jersey is 26th.
New Mexico is 9th.
Illinois is 13th.
source: http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html
I haven’t done thorough analysis, but I can offer some thoughts on at least SOME of these states and why they may have a lower “violent crime” rate...and it really doesn’t have much to do with the absence of a death penalty.
Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts have HUGE metropolitan areas in Detroit, Chicago and Boston. Those places typically have more violent crime than rural places...thus their higher rankings. D.C. is its own cesspool.
I must admit a couple of quandries...Alaska and New Mexico seem strangely high. My guess is that much of the violent crime there is committed by native populations (Eskimos/Indians?)...but that is only a guess.
The rest of the states, generally speaking, are far north states with low populations that typically ALREADY DON’T have high crime rates. Passing a “no death penalty” in these places would be kind of like saying a “no smoking” policy at an Iron Lung Ward is responsible for the low cancer rate among the residents. :)
Just my thoughts.
Damn. How messed up does a state have to be to make Massachusetts an improvement?
>> With the stroke of his pen,
Would he object to having that pen jammed into the skull of a fetus — ya’ know, to perform a legal abortion by a legal abortionist?
Dennis Prager maintained that that commandment is incorrectly translated from ancient Hebrew. It should read, “Thou shalt not Murder”, which is a very different thing.
I know what you mean about east coast republicans. Now imagine moving from rural Colorado to Connecticut. The simple average people you met at the post office knew more of what was going on then ten of these ‘sophisticated’ types getting out of 50K dollars cars here in CT.
And if you can believe it, it’s quickly getting worse.
“Why is it considered more humane to confine a man to an iron box until he stops breathing, rather than simply putting him to death??”
Well said.
Where’s the justice for the victims when those POS’s get 3 squares a meal and get basic cable for the rest of their lives? In modern America, that’s already the norm.
Move over to the Philadelphia suburbs and the average GOP voter is not all that different from their counterparts near Boston.
So northeastern conservatives not inclined to make a long distant move need only come to Pennsylvania.
I can believe it.
Maybe, but when the chips are down, Pennsylvania always lines up with the Democrats. Just too many Pennsylvanians still cling to their unions and entitlements.
They might as well put up billboards at the borders stating that the state welcomes and embraces murders.
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