State Senator Ed Gomes Wednesday night made an impassioned plea on the floor of the State Senate for his colleagues to repeal Connecticut’s death penalty. Early Thursday morning the State Senate, by a 20-16 vote, repealed the law, replaced by life in prison without possibility of parole. It now goes to the State House where it’s expected to pass and be signed by Governor Dannel Malloy. Check out the story at www.ctmirror.org. From Gomes:
HARTFORD – After a debate extending into the late hours of the night, the State Senate voted 20-16 early Thursday to cease condemning prisoners to death in the State of Connecticut. Senator Edwin Gomes (D-Bridgeport) hailed the vote as a major step toward greater justice in criminal sentencing.
“The death penalty is a deeply flawed policy, and I welcome tonight’s vote to repeal it. Justice should be, but is not, blind to race and wealth. The death penalty is not issued equally to all people who commit the same kinds of crimes. The sad truth is, when a victim is white and the accused is not, prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty, and juries are more likely to approve it,” said Senator Gomes.
“Throughout the death penalty’’ history in the United States it has been applied in a racist and biased manner. A comprehensive study by Professor John Donohue, which looked at over 4,000 murders in Connecticut between 1973 and 2007, found that the egregiousness of a crime plays little role in determining the handful of death sentences doled out. Rather, race and geography play the biggest role in who receives the death penalty. Connecticut prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty when the victim is White. Also troubling, seven of the 11 men on death row are minorities. This is not a just system. This is not a system that we can continue to tolerate,” said Scot X. Esdaile, President of the Connecticut NAACP.
“The death penalty is permanent, and when mistakes are made there is no bringing an executed person back to life. More than 130 individuals on death row have been exonerated over the last forty years. The death penalty is also not a deterrent to crime. The 16 states without the death penalty have a homicide rate 25% lower than those that do,” said Senator Gomes.
Senate Bill 280 would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for capital offenses committed on or after the effective date of the act. It also establishes tough new conditions for individuals convicted of the worst offenses, formerly capital crimes, to be known as “murder with special circumstances.” Such convicts would be:
Assigned a permanent Special Circumstances High Security Status
Housed in a separate housing unit from other inmates
Limited in time spent outside the prison cell (2 hours out, 22 hours in)
Subject to at least two cell searches per week, and moved to a new cell every 90 days
Permitted no work assignments outside of their housing unit
Allowed non-contact visitation only
The House of Representatives is expected to approve the bill within weeks, and Governor Dannel P. Malloy has said he will sign it.
If the Senator really believes his so-called passionate plea was instrumental in the passage of the bill that killed the Connecticut Death Penalty, then it is time he gets off his ass and make weekly public pleas to those killing and contemplating killing people in Bridgeport.
It’s time for Joel to get off his skinny little ass and pledge to chop off another finger for every homicide committed in the city of Bridgeport for the remainder of the year.
That’s nine and counting …
Grin, you must be mad as hell to hear the Connecticut Death Penalty is on its way out. Your part-time duty at the gates of Death Row will no longer be needed. Why should I chop off any other digits? Isn’t it enough every time one is killed, ten fingers are lost? What should I do when all digits are gone? Start with my toes? What should I do when all toes are gone? Type with my nose?
I agree with the decision to repeal the death penalty. I will change my mind when a method of determining absolute guilt, not ‘guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,’ is found. Until that time no one should be put to death. Too many are proven each year by DNA or other modern scientific means to be completely innocent of the crime that condemned them.
*** VICTIM’S RIGHTS! ***
While we are talking about the death penalty, I was wondering about some other legal matters in Bridgeport.
1. Was Art Harris arrested for what he did?
2. Who was the public facilities employee who was caught selling manhole covers, light posts and such? Was he arrested? Was he suspended? NO he wasn’t. I am told upper management likes this guy.
3. Why was another PF department suspended for a period of time for stealing and selling $38 in scrap metal owned by the city?
I was at the new restaurant across from city hall annex; it’s called the Barnum. I was talking to this guy and brought up the $35 parking ticket I received the other day (I deserved it). He said come outside with me for a minute, he point out 10 parked cars alongside the annex on John Street. There was not one parking ticket on any of the cars even though it was posted as a no parking area. Who belongs to these cars? Who put the word out not to tag these cars? Those 10 cars are worth $350 to the city of Bridgeport.
I’m not a bleeding-heart liberal by any definition. I don’t buy the argument it is much more expensive to impose a death sentence than life in prison. Virtually all death-row inmates are indigent and are represented by public defenders. They work on salary, not billable hours. The judges, prosecutors, bailiffs, judicial marshals, court clerks and corrections officers are all paid by the state and do not receive special dispensation when handling capital cases. So that argument can be tucked into bed forever.
The inmates on Connecticut’s death row earned the right to live there by committing horrific acts against humanity. Old Sparky ought to be taken out of mothballs and fired up. Time’s a-wastin’ for Russell Peeler, Steven Hayes, Joshua Komisarjevsky, Cedrick Cobbs and the rest of the animals there. Strap ’em down, one at a time. Have each one hold a package of Jiffy Pop so there will be munchy food.
Revenge is not justice. This post is a perfect and prime example of why no human being should decide, judicially or otherwise, to end the life of another human being.
When you weigh the pluses and minuses, the world is better off without these miscreants, these misbegotten vermin. No need for them to continue breathing my air.