Highest court rules to abolish state’s death row

The state had passed a law in 2012 to repeal the death penalty only for future crimes.

Dunham said the Connecticut Supreme Court ruling feeds into U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s recent suggestion from Glossip v. Gross – which the Connecticut justices heavily cited – that the death penalty is federally unconstitutional. He later faced a second penalty hearing and the possibility of lethal injection for a 2000 murder-for-hire killing. Thursday’s ruling holds that the Connecticut Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment forbids the state from executing any prisoners at all. In the meantime, it looks as though, if they want their death penalty back, they’re probably going to have to amend their state constitution to do it, which would be a judgment one way or another on the entire political commonwealth there. The latest state to abolish the death penalty was Nebraska in 2015.

The decision comes from an appeal from death-row inmate Eduardo Santiago, the Associated Press reports. “Because the majority opinion has grounded its decision on the conclusion, albeit incorrect, that the death penalty no longer comports with evolving standards of decency, the legislature has the power to reenact the death penalty”, she wrote.

Santiago’s mother expressed joy Thursday that he no longer had to fear execution. “It’s politics. Sometimes you have to give a little in order to get access to the bigger picture, and that’s what we did”, says Winfield. I arrived at my opposition to capital punishment after careful thought and through many years of experience in the criminal justice system, first as a prosecutor and then as an attorney and public servant.

The chief state’s attorney’s office declined to immediately comment on the ruling, saying it was still reviewing the decision.

Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy issued a statement Thursday saying those who have been on death row will spend the rest of their lives in state prisons with no possibility of freedom.

“It was a good day and it’s about time”, said Kardaras, President of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The ruling came just weeks after lawmakers passed the death penalty repeal.

Connecticut has executed only two inmates in the past 54 years, both of whom effectively volunteered for execution by abandoning their appeals. The last execution in the state of Connecticut took place in 2005, when Michael Ross, who was convicted of murdering four women, was put to death.