Sunday, August 16, 2015

Connecticut Supreme Court Strikes Down Death Penalty

The Connecticut Supreme Court has struck down the state's death penalty as it relates to 11 condemned prisoners on death row, reported the Jurist. The legislature had abolished the death penalty for all future cases but did not address the 11 men on the state's death row.

Justice Richard Palmer wrote for the court's majority that imposing the sentence on existing inmates when it has been outlawed for future use constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state constitution:
[T]he death penalty no longer serves any legitimate penological goal in our state. As Judge Kozinski concludes, ‘‘we have little more than an illusion of a death penalty in this country. To be sure, we have capital trials; we have convictions and death sentences imposed; we have endless and massively costly reviews by the state and federal courts; and we do have a small number of people executed each year. But the number of executions compared to the number of people who have been sentenced to death is minuscule, and the gap is widening every year. Whatever purposes the death penalty is said to serve— deterrence, retribution, assuaging the pain suffered by victims’ families—these purposes are not served by the system as it now operates.’’
To read the entire opinion CLICK HERE

No comments:

Post a Comment