Conn. lawmakers weigh death penalty repeal

By Reuters

HARTFORD, Conn. -- The Connecticut House of Representatives was expected to approve a measure repealing the state's death penalty on Wednesday, then send the bill to Gov. Dannel Malloy for a signature.

If the measure is approved, Connecticut would become the fifth U.S. state in five years to abandon capital punishment.

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The House move follows a 20-16 vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate on April 5 to repeal the death penalty. Malloy, a Democrat, has said he would sign the bill.

Connecticut's measure would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. An amendment added in the Senate provided that future felons, convicted of life sentences without parole, would be subject to the same harsh conditions as Connecticut inmates now on Death Row.

The 11 men there now would still face execution, since the law would only apply to future sentences.

A similar bill was defeated last year in Connecticut, just as the high-profile trial of Joshua Komisarjevsky was getting under way for his role in a 2007 home invasion in Cheshire in which a mother and her two daughters were brutalized and killed.

Komisarjevsky and another man are now on Death Row for the murders. The only survivor of the Cheshire attack, Dr. William Petit Jr. - the husband of the murdered woman and the father of the murdered girls - has spoken out against repeal.

Illinois, New Mexico and New Jersey have all voted to abolish the death penalty in recent years, while New York's death penalty law was declared unconstitutional in 2004. That state's legislature has repeatedly rejected attempts to reinstate capital punishment.

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