HARTFORD — A push to abolish Connecticut’s death penalty is one step closer to becoming a reality after clearing a key legislative hurdle in the state Senate early Thursday morning.
State senators voted 20-16 in favor of a death penalty repeal bill after about 11 hours of impassioned floor debate. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is considered to have a high level of support, and then to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat who has said he would sign it into law.
The legislation would eliminate capital punishment for all future cases, but would not directly affect sentences of the 11 inmates currently on Connecticut’s death row. Many officials insisted on that as a condition of their support for repeal in a state where two men were recently sentenced to death in a brutal, highly publicized 2007 home invasion.
The repeal bill would replace the death penalty for future cases with a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release. Additionally, the bill renames the capital felony charge as, “murder with special circumstances.”
The charge would be reserved for individuals convicted of murdering two or more people at the same time, a person under age 16 or a person he or she has kidnapped, among other scenarios. A Democratic amendment to the bill, which passed the Senate, would also require that inmates convicted under this new charge be subject to harsh prison conditions that mirror those which current death row prisoners face. It would require separate inmate housing, allow only non-contact visitation and mandate cell movement every 90 days. The amendment also calls for weekly cell searches, continuous monitoring when outside of a cell and no work assignments outside of the housing unit.
Sources: Norwich Bulletin, AP, April 5, 2012
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