Connecticut
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Death Penalty: No Capital: Hartford LATEST NEWS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN CONNECTICUT DPIC's State Database for information on executions, death row population and other statistics in Connecticut |
Bear Mountain. Public domain photo. |
In colonial Connecticut, capital crimes included idolatry, witchcraft, and blasphemy.
Famous Cases
The first person executed for witchcraft in what is now the United States was Achsah Young, who was executed in Hartford in 1647.
In 1786, Hannah Occuish, a 12-year-old Native American girl, was hanged in New London for the murder of a young white girl. She may have been the youngest person ever executed in the United States.
The last person executed in Connecticut who had exhausted all appeals was Frank Wojulewicz, who was executed in 1959 for murdering a police officer and bystander while committing a robbery. The two men executed since then both dropped appeals and "volunteered" for execution.
Notable Commutations/clemencies
Connecticut is one of five states that gives clemency authority to a board, rather than the governor. No death row inmate has been granted clemency since the death penalty was reinstated.
Milestones in Abolition/Reinstatement
In 2009, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill to abolish the death penalty, but the bill was vetoed by Governor M. Jodi Rell.
In 2012, Connecticut abolished the death penalty for future crimes. Eleven men remain on death row.
Other interesting facts
Connecticut has only carried out one execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty. Michael Ross was executed by lethal injection in 2005 after giving up his appeals.
Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty
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"[T]he campaign to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut has been led by dozens of family members of murder victims, and some of them were present as I signed this legislation today. In the words of one such survivor: ‘Now is the time to start the process of healing...'"
"Today is a dramatic and potentially historic day because the Senate has ... an opportunity to correct the arbitrariness, the discrimination, the random haphazard approach to the application of our death penalty in this state.''
"I cannot stand the thought of being responsible for someone being falsely accused and facing the death penalty. For me this is a moral issue...I don't want to be part of a system that sends innocent people..to the death penalty."