Governor vetoes bill that would have abolished death penalty in Connecticut

As expected, Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed the legislative bill that would have abolished the death penalty in the state. A firm advocate of capital punishment, she had announced that she would veto the bill “as soon as it hits my desk� (which it did on Friday, June 5).

This is the first time that the General Assembly has approved a plan to end capital punishment in the state. The House approved the bill 90 to 56. In the Senate, the vote was 19-17.

Three Democractic state senators are credited with swinging the vote: Andrea Stillman, Edith Prague and Gary LeBeau.

Also instrumental was Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30), who was the only Republican to support the bill. Roraback, who represents the largely liberal Northwest Corner, has consistently opposed the death penalty. For him, it’s not an issue that falls along party lines.

“While it’s true that I was the only Republican in the Senate to vote to abolish the death penalty, there were several Republicans in the House who also did so,� he said in an interview with The Journal. “Republicans are victims of crime, Democrats are victims of crime, and unaffiliated voters are victims of crime, just as Republicans commit crimes, Democrats commit crimes and unaffiliated voters commit crimes.�

His opposition to the death penalty is largely moral, “an issue of conscience.�

“If imposing the death penalty would bring back the victims of crime, I would probably look at it much differently,� he said. “But in all my years in Hartford, I’ve been consistent. Because I view a vote on this issue as being tantamount to pulling the switch to kill another human being, I can’t in good conscience vote to keep the death penalty.�

Ten men on death row

Connecticut has 10 death row inmates but has only executed one prisoner since 1960. Serial killer and rapist Michael Ross, who had been on death row for 17 years, was put to death by lethal injection in 2005 but only after a protracted court battle. His public defenders claimed that Ross, who had attempted suicide three times while on death row, was not mentally competent to request his own demise. Death row inmates have many levels of appeals that they can make before an execution (see related story, this page). Quinnipiac University law professor Linda Meyer estimates that the state pays $4 million a year on  litigating death penalty cases and providing extra security for death row facilities, partly to ensure inmates do not kill themselves.

“Even those who favor the death penalty have to admit that for all practical purposes, Connecticut’s death penalty statute has not worked for a very long time,� Roraback said. “And when Michael Ross pleaded to be executed, it took heroic measures for his wishes to be complied with.�

The 10 death row inmates in Connecticut are all men. They are held at the Northern Correctional Institute in Sommers, which currently has a total inmate population of 451 men. The 10 men awaiting execution by lethal injection are: Lazale Ashby, 24, convicted of raping and murdering his 21-year-old neighbor in 2002; Jessie Campbell III, 29, convicted in the shooting deaths in 2000 of three women; Robert Breton, 62, convicted in the 1987 beating and stabbing deaths of his 38-year-old ex-wife and their 16-year-old son; Sedrick “Rickyâ€� Cobb, 47, was convicted in the rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in 1989; Robert Courchesne, 51, convicted in the 1998 stabbing death of a woman who was eight months pregnant; Russell Peeler Jr., 37, convicted of ordering the 1999 killing of an 18-year-old boy and his mother (the boy was a witness to the shooting death of his mother’s boyfriend by Peeler, and he was about to testify against him in court); Richard Reynolds, 40, was convicted of killing a police officer in 1992; Daniel Webb, 46, was convicted of the 1999 kidnapping and murder of a 37-year-old woman who was a vice president at Connecticut National Bank; Eduardo Santiago, 29, was convicted of the  murder-for-hire killing of a 45-year-old man in 2000; Todd Rizzo, 30, was convicted of killing a 13-year-old boy by hitting him on the head repeatedly with a 3-pound sledgehammer in 1997.

A punishment for ‘heinous’ crimes

Although Connecticut rarely follows through with the execution of death row inmates, Gov. Rell said in a statement that she wants to preserve the punishment because “there are certain crimes so heinous — so fundamentally revolting to our humanity — that the death penalty is warranted.�

A Quinnipiac University poll taken in May 2009 showed that 61 percent of voters in this state are in favor of keeping the death penalty and 34 percent would like to see it abolished and replaced with a life sentence in prison.

“Gov. Jodi Rell has said that she intends to veto the bill to abolish the death penalty and public opinion is on her side,� said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, PhD., in May.

Veto expected to hold

The veto will hold, for now at least.

“You would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override the veto,� Roraback said, and that majority does not exist.

“There aren’t enough votes to overturn it,� state Rep. Roberta Willis (D-64) agreed. “We have 90 votes in the House and we would need 101 for a two-thirds majority.�

The vote in the Senate was, obviously, even closer.

Nonetheless, Willis called the success of the vote “historic� because of the large margin in, at least, the House.

When the bill is brought back onto the floor, probably in the 2011 “long� session of the General Assembly, she said she suspects that there might even be more votes in favor of abolishing the death penalty.

“Clearly, attitudes have moved,� she said. “And I think a lot of the new legislators are coming in with a new position. Most of the freshmen in the House voted for abolition.�