In 2012, the state of Connecticut (Conn.) passed a law abolishing the death penalty for crimes committed after April 25th of that year. However, that left intact the death penalty for inmates who were still on death row. This created a situation in which the death penalty was eliminated while simultaneously kept in place for crimes already committed. One death row inmate appealed his case and the Conn. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty violated the state’s constitution.
In a case before the state’s highest court, attorneys for a death row inmate argued that he should not be executed because his crime was committed before the state prohibited future death sentences. The Court agreed. In it’s August 2015 ruling, the Conn. Supreme Court said that the 2012 law abolishing capital punishment for future crimes must also be applied to the men on death row who committed crimes before the law took effect. It held that to execute those men now would be cruel and unusual punishment.
In making it’s decision, the court listed a series of issues with the death penalty, including racial and economic disparities in its use, the costs involved with the appeals, the cruelty of the wait for execution and the risk of executing innocent people. David McGuire of the Conn. ACLU said, “There are better ways to punish…..This is a decision on the right side of history.”
The inmates spared execution will spend the rest of their lives in prison without possibility of parole.
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Source Article from http://politicalblindspot.com/connecticut-death-row-inmates-spared-execution/
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