Public deserves an explanation [Rep-Am]

Republican American Editorial

In 2012, the Connecticut legislature passed, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed, a bill that ostensibly banned future capital-punishment prosecutions but preserved the sentences of the individuals already on death row. Critics warned that the new law would help these inmates appeal their sentences. Indeed, on Aug. 13, the Connecticut Supreme Court “ordered the state’s death row emptied out, ruling that the 2012 law … must be applied to the 11 men facing execution for offenses they committed before the measure took effect,” The Associated Press reported.

Senate Minority Leader Leonard A. Fasano, R-North Haven, wrote to Gov. Malloy and requested that the governor disclose the legal advice that backed the guarantee that the 2012 law would not spare the individuals already on death row. It doesn’t seem the governor’s office will honor the request. Spokesman Devon Puglia said, “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.”

Team Malloy’s attitude is troubling. Sen. Fasano raised a valid point, and the governor lacks the standing to accuse anyone of playing politics with the death penalty

Gov. Malloy has an obligation to disclose the legal advice. Echoing Sen. Fasano, the Republican-American’s Paul Hughes reported Aug. 18 that “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.” A Quinnipiac University poll conducted April 18-23, 2012 — less than a week before the governor signed the bill — found that 62 percent of Connecticut residents supported the death penalty. The public deserves to know of the advice that proved so wrong. Failure to disclose it would amount to an egregious slap in the face.

As we wrote on our “Worth Reading” blog on April 23, 2012, the governor’s behavior “with regard to the death penalty is a profile in a politician trying to have it both ways.” In January 2010, then-candidate Malloy told the Connecticut Mirror he wouldn’t support the death penalty for Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, the monsters who murdered Dr. William A. Petit Jr.’s wife and daughters in 2007. “We are going to have a very high-profile death-penalty trial in Connecticut (for Hayes), but that doesn’t change my core belief that it is not a core function of government to put people to death,” he said. However, after a death sentence was handed up in November 2010, then-Gov.-elect Malloy said, “I support the decision of the jury and I will do nothing to impinge on that.”

Interestingly, months after Gov. Malloy’s January 2011 inauguration, the legislature considered a bill intended to ban future capital-punishment prosecutions while preserving the sentences of the individuals already on death row. The bill failed, amid concerns that it would help Komisarjevsky, who was about to go on trial, appeal a death sentence. It was approved a year later, after Komisarjevsky had been sentenced to death. Gov. Malloy signed the bill in private.

The governor should apologize to Sen. Fasano and honor the senator’s request. He let the people down, and the decent thing to do is provide a full accounting.