Since the News and The Blog continue to be dominated by issues of Life and Death, here’s the latest word from the Constitution State. (Note the Ironic headline.)
Death Penalty Survives
After Five-Hour Debate, House Votes 89-60 Against Proposed Repeal Of Capital PunishmentMarch 31, 2005
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff WriterThe state House of Representatives rejected a proposal Wednesday to abolish the death penalty and spare the lives of serial killer Michael Ross and six others on Connecticut’s death row.
By an 89-60 vote, the House defeated a bill that would have made what are now capital crimes punishable by life in prison without possibility of release.
…The vote underlined a sharp partisan divide on capital punishment that could reverberate in the 2006 elections for governor and the General Assembly.
The 52-member Republican minority strongly embraced the death penalty, voting 48-4 against repeal, while the 99-member Democratic majority split. Democrats voted 56-41 for abolition, with two absences.
…Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, the co-chairman of the judiciary committee, urged the House to remove Connecticut’s singular status in the Northeast: It is the only state from New Jersey to Maine with prisoners on death row.
…Ross faces a scheduled execution May 11 only because he has waived further appeals and volunteered to die.
…Rep. David K. Labriola, R-Naugatuck, called the repeal effort “an insult and a cold slap in the face” to the families of the victims of every killer on death row.
Then he allowed that opposition to capital punishment on moral or religious ground was “a respectable point of view.”
I would certainly Allow as how it is, too. Also respectable is such opposition to abortion, to euthanasia, to withholding or withdrawal of artifical life-support, and for that matter to all War. Re the Death Penalty, I more-or-less share (albeit with gritted teeth, in certain Cases) the Opposition’s view. / But I would not Allow that simply because these Respect-worthy views are usually held & proclaimed with great Moral and Religious sincerity, certitude and intensity, respectable Governments must perforce Execute, Legislate, and Adjudicate in strict accordance with them. (Be informed by them, as by others, in its deliberations & actions ~ Yes.)
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Categories: Connecticut & Newington
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March 31st, 2005 at 9:31:56 pm
Hmm. I’m amused by the implication that New York is not part of the Northeast. While it’s true that it’s not part of New England, not counting it as part of the Northeast seems laughable.
March 31st, 2005 at 10:59:33 pm
Albeit it is no more New England than are duh Joysey Meadowlands :), The Empire State (motto: “Excelsior!” :) is not merely Part of the Northeast, it IS ~ Quintessentially ~ the Northeast. :)
Laughable, schmaughable, Biology Boy: wot’s yer Point? ( Yoo talkin’aMee? :) Do you mean, the great State of Nyeww Yawk gots Nobody on Death Row? OR that, as between Noo Jersey & Maine, Lady you can’t Get there from Here unless ya know what Dela Ware? :)
March 31st, 2005 at 11:34:16 pm
New York basically got rid of the death penalty this past summer. I’m not clear on the fate of the people currently on death row — but the federal government is going to execute a Massachusetts convict in New York because MA has no death penalty or death facility.
April 1st, 2005 at 7:42:21 am
The Feds are going to kill him? What was the Crime? High Treason??
April 1st, 2005 at 11:04:31 am
All right. Let me start it.
Those murdering, fascist Republicans …. oh wait, there were more Democrats who voted for it that Republicans!!!!!
April 1st, 2005 at 2:58:02 pm
Presumably the Feds are going to execute him for a federal crime, a la Timothy McVeigh.