CT House passes bill abolishing death penalty
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There must be something about this date. May 13 is now host to two significant death penalty events in Connecticut. On May 13, 2005, the State executed Michael Ross, after about a year of wrangling on his part to make it happen. Today, the CT House of Representatives voted 90-56 in favor of a bill abolishing the death penalty.
The debate on the floor of the House spanned 5 hours and had you been watching you would have seen and heard a cornucopia of arguments. Representatives stood up one after another and offered arguments either for or against the bill that ranged from the passionate to the disingenuous to the downright bizarre.
At the end of it, however, only one thing was certain: the great engine that is the abolition movement just turned over and inched slightly forward. The Constitution State is one step closer to making New Hampshire the only state in the expanded Northeast to still have the death penalty.
Of course, there are two obstacles to actual abolition forthcoming: a vote in the State Senate and then the Governor’s desk. My sources haven’t yet given me a sense of whether there are enough votes in the Senate for passage of this bill, but the Governor has already made her feelings known:
“I have always said that I support the death penalty because I do believe that there are some crimes that are so heinous that the death penalty is the only option,” Rell told reporters at the state Capitol complex. “I believe in the death penalty.
Rell dismissed arguments made by opponents.
“I don’t consider it revenge,” Rell said. “It’s justice.”
Of course, her position is likely to change if a QU/UConn poll is released shortly that shows the state’s residents favor abolition (credit for the joke goes to Ryan).
I guess I should mention that the bill is prospective only, but that makes me seem like a wet blanket.
Nah. If you’re of the opinion that a: there’s no possible combination of horribleness of crime and proof that the guy sitting next to the defense counsel did it sufficient to justify the State killing him (I think you are, and I’m sure I’m not — I’ll point to Eichmann, Gilmore, and Ted Bundy — but that’s okay) and/or b: nobody’s come up with a sufficiently reliable system to implement the death penalty, and until somebody does, it’s better to just put the guy sitting next to the defense counsel in prison until he dies, because if you find out that the system screwed up and he hasn’t gotten around to dying yet, at least you can spring him and give him some money (I lean that way, pretty strongly — and I’ll point to all the guys who got sprung, eventually, when the DNA tests showed that, well, it wasn’t them, and am pretty sure that there’s some equally factually innocent guys where DNA wasn’t an issue, and they’re still in prison) although I kinda worry about the factually innocent guy who gets executed one day at a time until the years finally end it, and know you do, too), this is definitely a good step.
So: enjoy. It’s a good day.
My God, man. How do you hold your breath that long?
A few years of performing Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy, actually. Anybody who can get through the final verse —
can do that, easy.
For those who aren’t paying attention, J-dog’s comment is one sentence.
I like to think of Governor Rell/Moody as the “Governor By Always Choosing The Path Least Resistance.”