An Act Concerning the Penalty for a Capitol Felony

Early last Friday morning, after a debate that lasted nearly eleven hours, the Senate voted 19-17 in support of a proposal to abolish the death penalty, HB 6578, An Act Concerning the Penalty for a Capitol Felony. Although the bill passed both the House and Senate, Governor Rell has stated her intent to veto it, in her words, "as soon as it hits my desk".

Rarely in the Senate do we face decisions that are influenced by such a wide range of factors, be it our families, religion, personal experiences, or simply our human response to horrific events. It was evident from the floor speeches given throughout the night and into the morning that each legislator felt more obligated to vote in line with their conscience than their party.

I voted, along with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, in opposition to this proposal, believing that there are some crimes so horrific that capital punishment is the only adequate form of justice for the perpetrators of these crimes. While I support retaining the death penalty, I believe we need to use it very sparingly. It would be an utter travesty for an individual to be put to death for a crime they did not commit and I know that we bend over backwards to make sure no one on death row is there unjustly. Fundamentally, I believe the death penalty does work as a deterrent and is the only just punishment for certain horrific and heinous crimes.

In addition to deterrence and just punishment, I believe the death penalty is necessary to keep law and order in our correctional facilities. I have six correctional facilities in my district housing over 8,000 individuals, including ten on death row. If an inmate is already in prison for life without the possibility of release, absent the death penalty, there is no deterrent to keep them from killing a correction officer or some other prison employee. In light of this concern, I offered an amendment that would carve out an exemption to the underlying bill for the murder of an employee of the Department of Correction by an inmate, but it was defeated 20-15.

Additional amendments were offered by other Republican senators to carve out exemptions in the case of a death of a police officer, or a member of the armed forces, and to retain capital punishment as a penalty for crimes committed before the implementation date of the bill, all of which were defeated. Nevertheless, Governor Rell will veto HB 6578 and there clearly are not enough votes to override her veto.