Connecticut abolishes the death penalty
Published on 04/26/2012
The death penalty continues to recede in the United States: Connecticut has become the 17th state to abolish the death penalty. Eleven people who have already been convicted are to continue to be executed.
ESignature for humanity: Connectticut Governor Dannel Malloy signed into law a law abolishing the death penalty in his state on Wednesday (local time). The law was finally passed two weeks ago by the parliament in the small state in the north-east of the USA. The abolition does not apply retrospectively, however, eleven convicts must therefore continue to wait in Connecticut for their execution.
The new maximum penalty in Connecticut is life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. Malloy spoke of a “historic moment”. The governor recalled that only two people had been executed in Connecticut in the past half-century – and both had asked for it themselves.
The majority of those convicted filed one appeal after the other in lengthy and costly proceedings. The 11 remaining death row inmates would “likely die of old age rather than be executed,” Malloy said.
In the past five years, the states of Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York had abolished the death penalty, which the Supreme Court reinstated in 1976. A referendum on ending the death penalty will be held in California in November.
In Oregon, Governor John Kitzhaber announced a moratorium on the death penalty last November, effectively moving the West Coast state to the camp of states that don’t allow executions.