"Death penalty: Repeal of barbaric law should not be compromised," is the editorial in today's Danbury News Times.
State Sen. Andrew Roraback, whose district includes New Milford, Brookfield and Kent, was the only Republican senator in 2009 to vote to repeal the death penalty in Connecticut.
And:
We believe that Roraback, an 18-year veteran in the General Assembly, is a pragmatic politician who is leveraging his clout in the Senate on the death penalty repeal to gain votes for his amendment.
That may well be the way bills get passed.
But Roraback's amendment -- which is worthwhile -- should be attached to a different bill.
We believe that repeal of the death penalty is too important -- it is ethically imperative -- to be jeopardized.
The Day reports, "Victims' relatives favor abolition of death penalty," by JC Reindl.
Rae Giesing of Groton has lived through the horror of losing a child to murder.
Six years ago, her adult son, Gregory Giesing, was killed in his Groton apartment by a 19-year-old man with a sawed-off shotgun. The killer, who also killed Gregory Giesing's stepbrother, Derek Von Winkle, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
On Wednesday, Giesing recalled during a gathering of death penalty opponents in the Capitol that she was glad the murderer, Ian Cooke, wasn't sentenced to death.
"I want him to think about it for the rest of his life," she said.
Giesing was among a group of nearly two dozen relatives of murder victims who on Wednesday urged lawmakers to pass legislation that would end the death penalty in Connecticut and replace it with life imprisonment without parole.
"If our legislators really care about us, they will get rid of the death penalty once and for all," said Elizabeth Brancato of Torrington, whose mother, Barbara McKitis, was raped and murdered in 1979.
"Families of slaying victims rally against death penalty in Connecticut," by Jordan Fenster in the New Haven Register.
In early 2011, Brian Patterson was killed in Virginia.
A little more than a year later, Patterson’s cousin, Khalilah Brown-Dean came forward to protest the death penalty in Connecticut.
Brown-Dean was one of six speakers, all of them family members of slaying victims, who took part in a press conference and rally Wednesday to end the death penalty. Those six speakers are among 179 family members of slaying victims who signed a letter to legislators arguing against capital punishment.
“There is simply no justice in taking the life of another,” Brown-Dean said.
Earlier coverage of the repeal effort in Connecticut begins at the link.
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