Death penalty on our minds
Two separate news items of note on the death penalty in Connecticut today. The first is a hearing in the judiciary committee on a bill that sets absurd time limits on the filing of appeals and habeas corpus petitions. S.B. 320 is a resurrection of an almost identical bill that failed in the last legislative session. The bill would require both the defendant and the state to file its briefs within 4 months of the imposition of the sentence and it would require the Supreme Court to schedule oral argument no later than 6 months from the date of the imposition of the sentence. These time limits are absurd and arbitrary and unworkable. There is no way that all issues that need to be raised in capital cases can be raised in two months.
Further, it requires all habeas corpus petitions in capital cases to be filed within 180 days (or at the same time that oral argument is scheduled) of the imposition of the sentence and a hearing on such a habeas petition shall be held within 180 days of the filing of such a petition.
However, a subsequent petition will not be barred if (1) the facts underlying the claim were unknown to the defendant or the defendant’s attorney and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence prior to the filing of the earlier application, and (2) the facts underlying the claim, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would have reasonably led the original trier of fact to have either found the defendant not guilty or not sentence the defendant to death. The court shall hold a hearing on such subsequent application not later than one hundred eighty days after the filing of such application.
Written testimony submitted to the Judiciary Committee is available here. This bill is opposed by the ACLU, the Public Defender’s Office and the State’s Attorney’s Office.
The second news item was a discussion on the state of the death penalty in Connecticut on NPR’s “Where We Live“. The guests include Waterbury State’s Attorney John Connelly, Yale Prof. John Donahue, who conducted the disparity study, Helen Williams – the mother of Richard Reynolds’ victim, Robert Nave – the director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, New Jersey Senator Christopher Bateman and State Rep. Michael Lawlor.
Connecticut is one of 2 states in New England that still has a death penalty. New Hampshire is the other—but recently that state has created a commission to study the process including whether the death penalty actually deters crime, just as New Jersey did prior to its abolition of the death penalty.
The discussion included the cost of the death penalty vis-a-vis life imprisonment, its deterrence value and who the focus is on. Quotes from citizens include comments about the fallibility of the justice system as demonstrated by the DNA exonerations and whether we should take that risk with the one truly irreversible punishment. It is an hour long, but definitely worth listening to.
Connelly and even the host keep trumpeting the “fact” that the majority of citizens are in favor of the death penalty. Lawlor mentions that when CT citizens are given the choice between the death penalty and life imprisonment, the opinions are more even.
Then the discussion turns to the hearing scheduled in the judiciary committee and Connelly characterizes it as appeals and habeas corpus petitions filed “ad nauseam“. Where he gets this, I do not know, but apparently NPR didn’t see it fit to have anyone from the defense bar to mention that there is a statutory right to a direct appeal and a Constitutional right to habeas corpus.
Lawlor then says it like it is: This is a political issue and whether abolition proceeds depends on opinion polls and what people think about it. He says they will look to New Jersey’s upcoming elections to see whether the abolition will be an issue there.
Courtesy of NPR, the audio is available below.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Gideon on March 10, 2008 at 6:51 pm, and is filed under ct legal news, ct state law, death penalty, habeas. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 3 years ago
Oh please! Out here in Idaho, we wouldn’t know what to do with an extra 80 days.
Even more ridiculous when considering the ISC recently defined ‘reasonable’ also as 42 days.
about 3 years ago
How many people do you have working on capital appeals? Are those 42 days enough? Would you recommend that?
about 3 years ago
To think that anyone could put together any sort of intelligent, meaningful review of the record, much less a meaningful mitigation investigation in 42 days (or even 4 months – or even a year) is absurd.
Compounding the problem here is that post-conviction proceedings run concurrently with the direct appeal, leaving a host of errors potentially unpreserved for habeas. The ISC seems to think it all works fine though. :/
about 3 years ago
Presently, briefs are due on a date certain following the completion of the transcript, not the imposition of sentence….
Has it occurred to the idiot proposing this bill that we don’t even GET a transcript within 4 months of the imposition of sentence in a capital case?
about 3 years ago
Ed: The offending portion of the previous comment having been removed, this comment is now pointless and there’s no need to remind anyone of what might have been said. Thus I have edited it.
about 3 years ago
It is a civility policy and yes, I’d prefer it if people refrained from using that word or words like that. I’m not going to delete it, though, just like I didn’t delete your characterization of Judge Fuger.
about 3 years ago
My bad–and my apologies to Gideon and readers. Sometimes my anger at politicians (and my knee jerk liberal tendencies) lead me to open mouth and insert foot. I regreted the post the minute I posted it–Gideon, if you wanna delete it, I’d be appreciative.
SPO–I suppose if we’re going to HAVE a death penalty (and that’s a point we could debate until the cows come home), it should be carried out “efficiently.” But what’s “efficient”? A system which insures the defendant is treated fairly, or one which insures he’s executed as soon as possible.
My annoyance is derived from the fact that whatever legislator put this bill up obviously made no attempt whatsoever to find out the actual facts and mechanisms in place in the CT judicial system for handling capital cases before drafting it. Quite simply, it makes no sense. Currently, it takes about a year here to get a transcript in a capital case, and since the attorneys handling the appeal are different than those trying the case, it should be patently obvious to anyone who talks to someone involved in the system for 2 minutes that a 4 month time limit won’t work.
This was put up for the purposes of playing to someone’s conservative base. The proponent has no expectation its ever going to be enacted. And that kind of pandering isn’t helping anyone.
about 3 years ago
Done. Thanks for commenting!