Connecticut abolishes death penalty

originally by: USA Today
published: 25 April 2012

Capital punishment has been abolished in Connecticut, the 17th state to end executions.

Gov. Dannel Malloy signed the legislation this afternoon, without a public ceremony, the Waterbury American-Republican reports from Hartford. The repeal does not apply to the 11 men on death row, who “are far more likely to die of old age than they are to be put to death,” the governor said in a statement.

Malloy, a Democrat and former prosecutor, called it “an historic moment,” but said “it is a moment for sober reflection, not celebration.”

Many of us who have advocated for this position over the years have said there is a moral component to our opposition to the death penalty.

18 April 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

‘A true horror story’: The abuse of teenage boys in a detention centre

originally by: The Guardian
published: 13 April 2012

“My name’s Kevin Raymond Young and I’m 52 years old.” There’s something desperate about the way Young says it, as if he’s clinging to the wreckage of his identity. Young was 17 when he was sent to Medomsley detention centre in County Durham. He’d already had a tough life – taken into care at two, sexually and physically abused by those who were meant to look after him – but this was something different. As soon as he starts to tell his story, he’s in tears.

His experience of Medomsley in 1977 has shaped, or disfigured, his life ever since. He was convicted of receiving stolen property – a watch his brother had given him; the first he had owned. The police asked if he knew where it had come from. No, he said. Could it possibly have been stolen, they asked. He thought about it – well, yes, possibly. He was sentenced to three months’ detention.

26 March 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Committee passes death penalty repeal bill

originally by: The Day
published: 22nd March 2012

A bill that would abolish the state’s death penalty for all future cases and replace the punishment with life imprisonment has passed its first round of votes in the General Assembly despite a recent poll’s findings that repeal is unpopular with a majority of voters. Members of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee voted 24-19 in favor of the bill on Wednesday. Now, the vote awaits further legislative action by the state’s Senate.

The vote on the bill came shortly after a new Quinnipiac University poll showed 62 percent of Connecticut residents do not support repealing the death penalty.