To kill, or not to kill

Once the public hears the horrifying account of the slaughter of Dr. William Petit’s family in the trial of Stephen Hayes and then again in the trial of Joshua Komisarjevsky, there will be widespread support for not only their execution but to make capital punishment more than an unenforceable state law.

The result could be a tough death penalty law that leaves Connecticut out of step with most of the Northeast and virtually all of the civilized nations of Europe and the Americas, and in sync with primitive states like North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Texas. This would be a departure for a state that hasn’t liked the death penalty very much.

It’s pretty easy to favor the death penalty in the Petit case. Even its most fervent opponents would agree that the two habitual criminals being tried for the murder of the wife and daughters of Dr. Petit are perhaps the most deserving candidates for execution Connecticut has seen in generations.

It should be noted that the pair tried to plead guilty in return for life sentences without parole and are being tried in order to execute them. But do even their vicious acts justify what the U.S. Supreme Court once ruled a cruel and unusual form of punishment that is considered barbaric in much of the civilized world?

There is considerable sentiment here and throughout the world that the taking of a life by the state is on a level with the crime that prompted it. The difference between beheading criminals in Saudi Arabia or stoning them to death in Iran and fatally injecting them in Connecticut is mainly a matter of technique. The results are the same: state-sanctioned killing.

Dan Malloy, the Democratic candidate for governor, opposes the death penalty, which could cost him votes in this climate, and Tom Foley, the Republican, supports it. Chris Healy, the Republican Party chairman, says Malloy’s “opposition to the death penalty shows he is not ready to be governor. Governors are supposed to protect the health and safety of the public and Dan Malloy doesn’t measure up by supporting repeal of this just form of punishment for heinous, evil crimes.â€

If Healy is correct, no Connecticut governor in recent decades has been very effective in promoting public health and safety through executions. There has been only one execution since 1960 and that one, of serial killer Michael Ross in 2005, was voluntary. After going through the appeals process for 18 years, Ross decided on his own he didn’t want to cause his eight victims’ families any more anguish and abandoned future appeals.

The truth is, Connecticut currently has a death penalty law but no death penalty. The 11 men awaiting execution today are protected by a law that doesn’t execute anyone unless the condemned man abandons the long and complicated appeals process that effectively keeps those sentenced to death alive for years. It’s as if the state, in its heart, doesn’t want a death penalty.

The Democratic-controlled General Assembly did repeal the death penalty last year but couldn’t override Gov. Rell’s veto. The governor vetoed repeal because of the Petit family killings, despite ample evidence that even if Hayes and Komisarjevsky are sentenced to death, it is almost certain they will not be executed under the current law unless they ask for it.

Connecticut never was much in favor of the death penalty. The Connecticut colony began hanging murderers and witches in 1639 and in the next nearly 300 years, there were just 108 men and women hanged by the colony and state. Since 1937, when the electric chair replaced the hangman’s noose, the state has had only 18 electrocutions, and in 2005, Ross became the first and, to date, the only person executed by a lethal injection.

That’s a total of 127 executions in nearly four centuries or, to put it in perspective, not quite as many as the 131 George W. Bush executed during the five years he was governor of Texas.

Dick Ahles is a retired broadcast journalist from Simsbury. He may be reached by e-mail at dahles@hotmail.com.

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