ACLU Hails Connecticut Governor for Signing Death Penalty Repeal Bill Into Law

State Furthers Growing National Momentum Against Capital Punishment

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HARTFORD, Conn. – The American Civil Liberties today hailed the decision by Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to sign into law a bill repealing the death penalty, calling it the latest sign of growing momentum in favor of ending the use of executions nationwide.

With Malloy’s signature today, Connecticut becomes the 17th state to end the use of capital punishment and the fifth state in the past five years to abolish the death penalty.

“With the stroke of his pen, Gov. Malloy has taken a bold and courageous stand against the systemic injustices that plague the entire death penalty system, both in Connecticut and the rest of the United States,” said Denny LeBoeuf, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “Capital punishment in this country is carried out as part of an unequal system of justice, in which innocent people are too often sentenced to death, and decisions about who lives and who dies depend on the skill of their attorneys, the race of the defendant or the victim, their socioeconomic status and where the crime took place. Such arbitrary and discriminatory administration of the death penalty, which places an enormous financial burden on taxpayers, is the very definition of a failed system, and the state of Connecticut should be commended for ending it.”

Connecticut today joins New Mexico, Illinois, New York and New Jersey as the fifth state in the past five years to have repealed the death penalty.