Governor asked to reveal advice on Death Row [Rep-Am]

Republican American | http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2015/08/18/news/local/901914.txt

HARTFORD — The Republican leader of the Senate is asking Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to share legal advice that supported his 2012 position that banning future executions would not spare the 11 inmates then on death row from being executed.

The governor’s office dismissed the request Monday from Sen. Leonard A. Fasano, R-North Haven, as a political stunt following the state Supreme Court’s contentious 4-3 decision last week that ruled out executions in the future.

In a letter, Fasano asked Malloy to outline the research that supported his often-stated position that the legislation abolishing capital punishment prospectively would preserve the death penalty for capital crimes committed before its effective date of April 25, 2012.

“Without your guarantees, it is clear that you would not have had the support to advance any death penalty repeal legislation,” Fasano wrote.

His letter asked Malloy to explain the information that he and the governor’s office analyzed as well as provide any communications or legal opinions that he relied upon in reaching his conclusions in 2012.

“When you made these assurances to legislators, victims and the public regarding such a serious subject, I am sure you and your staff had done the necessary research to support your position,” Fasano wrote.

The governor’s office’s responded tersely to the Republican leader’s inquiries.

“Our thoughts are with the victims and their families right now. We wish Republicans would show a modicum of respect by refraining from engaging in what are obvious political stunts,” said Devon Puglia, a Malloy spokesman.

He noted that the governor’s office had yet to receive the letter that Fasano’s office had sent out to the news media.

In his letter, Fasano said Malloy’s claims in 2012 had provided the families of the victims comfort and reassurance that the repeal of capital punishment would not spare the lives of the killers of their loved ones.

He also noted Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane had warned that such guarantees would not stand up to a constitutional review, as did lawmakers in both parties who opposed repeal.

Supporters of the 2012 repeal bill had acknowledged at that time that the House and Senate would not have passed legislation that would have commuted the sentences of death row inmates.

The Petit family murders were also a factor in that regard.

In 2007, Dr. William A. Petit Jr. lost his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and the couple’s two daughters, Hayley, 17, and, Michaela, 11, to murder in an invasion of the family’s Cheshire home. Juries had handed out death sentences to the two petty criminals charged in the murders in 2010 and 2011.

Opponents of the repeal bill predicted these two killers and the rest awaiting execution on death row would successfully appeal their death sentences. The split Supreme Court decision last week proved them right.

The court’s four-member majority concluded the death penalty no longer meets society’s evolving standards of decency and violates the Connecticut Constitution’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment. As a result of the ruling, the 11 men on death row will now spend their rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of release.

The 2012 legislation replaced the death penalty in Connecticut with life imprisonment without the possibility of release. Formerly, capital crimes were renamed as murder with special circumstances.

The measure specified that it did not affect capital felony convictions or capital cases that were pending before its effective date. It also preserved the death penalty for capital crimes committed before that date.

The act additionally imposed strict conditions of confinement for inmates convicted of murder with special circumstances, including a requirement that they spend 23 hours a day in their cells.

As a precaution, the legislature applied this provision to inmates whose death sentences are commuted or reduced to life without the possibility of release, too.