via Shannon Young, The Huffington Post
After years of failed attempts to repeal the death penalty, Connecticut lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have passed legislation that abolishes the punishment for all future cases.
As expected, members of the House voted 86-62 in favor of the bill after a floor debate that lasted nearly 10 hours on Wednesday.
The legislation, which would make Connecticut the 17th state to abolish the death penalty, awaits a signature from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has said he would sign the bill into law.
“Going forward, we will have a system that allows us to put these people away for life, in living conditions none of us would want to experience,” the Democratic governor said in a statement following the vote. “Let’s throw away the key and have them spend the rest of their natural lives in jail.”
The bill would abolish the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release.
Lawmakers were able to garner support by making the legislation affect only future crimes and not the 11 men currently on death row. Some bill opponents, however, have called the move a political tool.
“It’s tough to explain (the bill) to a four year old and it’s tough to explain to a 40-year-old or a 94-year-old because to many it is illogical and does not make sense,” said House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk. “…We allow the death penalty to continue for at least 11 people and maybe more.”
Rep. Gerald Fox III, D-Stamford, co-chair of the General Assembly’s joint Judiciary Committee, said he was pleased to see the bill pass after working for years to repeal the death penalty.
Repeal bill champion Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, said although he was pleased with the results of the vote, more needs to be done to fix the state’s criminal justice system.
“It’s just one step in a long movement towards fixing our system and making sure we have safety and equality in our system,” he said.
Preserving the death sentence of those still on death row is fairly unusual, although a similar law took effect in New Mexico. The governor there declined to commute the sentences of the state’s two death row inmates after the repeal was signed in 2009.
Connecticut has a history of making changes to the death penalty prospective, said Fox. He said in 1846, the state created distinctions between first- and second-degree murders. Prior to that change, all murders were punishable by death.
In 1951, a law was passed allowing a jury to determine whether to impose death or life in prison for a first-degree murder. That law, Fox said, was ultimately upheld by the State Supreme Court.
“There is a history behind this. It has happened before in terms of the prospective nature of our death penalty,” Fox said. “…I understand these cases are heavily litigated and every avenue is always explored to its fullest, but that is where our law stands now.”
Both advocates and opponents of the repeal bill predicted the repeal would ultimately become law.
The Brandt Standard 
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