Why The Death Penalty Is Irrevocably Wrong



By MARGARET P. LEVY

December 28, 2008

Mistakes are made. Horrible mistakes are made. It is time for 
Connecticut's legislature to abolish the death penalty — now, in the 
2009 legislative session — to limit future mistakes.

On Dec. 19, Miguel Roman was released from prison after 20 years, 
based on newly reviewed evidence. Another man has been arrested for 
the murder that kept Miguel's family fatherless for two decades. 
Neither case is resolved yet. Can anyone doubt Miguel would not have 
been released from his 60-year sentence unless prosecutors believed 
he had been dreadfully wronged? Other mistakes will surely occur. 
Some may kill innocent persons.

We should abolish the death penalty because it is simply wrong for 
us, as individuals and as a community, to kill people. It is wrong to 
kill with premeditation and legal process aforethought. It is wrong 
to take 20 years to litigate, appeal, remand and re-litigate a case 
in order to kill a human being. It diminishes our humanity and our 
respect for life.

It is true that Connecticut has executed only one person in the past 
40 years. The infrequency with which the ultimate punishment is used 
does not make it right. And there is collateral damage from our 
system of capital punishment. The existence of the death penalty 
distorts the operation of our criminal justice system. Defendants 
accept sentences of "life without release" to avoid facing trials and 
a potential death sentence. The state avoids the burden of proving 
its most serious cases beyond a reasonable doubt.

The U.S. Supreme Court is moving in the direction of abolishing the 
death penalty. Fifty years ago in Trop v. Dulles, it declared, 
"Evolving standards of decency must embrace and express respect for 
the dignity of the person." The punishment of criminals must conform 
to that rule. Within the past six years, the Bush court has declared 
use of the death penalty unconstitutional for the mentally retarded, 
juveniles and child rapists in cases where the child has not died.

As of April 2007, the Innocence Project reported that 200 persons in 
the United States had been exonerated through DNA evidence. More have 
been freed since then, including Roman, who has been granted a new 
trial after the Innocence Project asked that DNA evidence from his 
case be retested with modern technology. Most have suffered years of 
incarceration. Their families were deprived of companionship and 
support.

Yet most criminal cases do not involve DNA. Many wrongful convictions 
result from of mistaken eyewitness identifications. Honest but 
terrified crime victims or witnesses may glimpse attackers for only a 
few seconds, often in poor light. Victims are often traumatized. They 
are under pressure from police to identify the attackers. Victims and 
their families want to help capture criminals, to make the streets 
safe and spare others from similar experiences. Scared survivors look 
at mug shot books with pictures of "similar-looking" suspects. Many 
become genuinely convinced they can identify their attackers. 
Mistakes in these kinds of cases are even harder to reverse than 
mistakes resolvable by DNA.

Knowing that mistakes are made, and that exonerations continue, we 
should not wait any longer to abolish the death penalty in 
Connecticut. Yes, I know about the tragic murders in Cheshire. Sadly, 
nothing we can ever do will bring the Pettit women back to life.

Realistically, the most gruesome killers will not be deterred by the 
existence of a death penalty. We have a death penalty. It didn't 
prevent Cheshire.

Even State's Attorney John Connelly of the judicial district of 
Waterbury, which has sent more men to death row than any other in 
Connecticut, candidly told an informational forum of the legislature 
in January 2005 that the purpose of the death penalty "is not 
deterrence. It's retribution. ... The question becomes we as a 
community, we as a society, who do we feel is appropriate for these 
types of cases?"

To me the question is, "Is it appropriate for us to kill anyone?" And 
the answer is, "No."

The Cheshire murder cases are keeping this state, its General 
Assembly and its criminal justice community from serious 
consideration of abolishing the death penalty. We should not put our 
progress toward justice on hold. We should demand that our 
legislators abolish Connecticut's death penalty. And the governor 
should sign the abolition bill into law.

• Margaret P. Levy of West Hartford was the attorney for Miguel Roman 
in 1993 during his unsuccessful appeal of his murder conviction to 
the Connecticut Supreme Court and his petition to the U.S. Supreme 
Court for it to hear his case. She has not represented him since.

[Do you agree? Or disagree? Make your opinion count with a Letter to 
the Editor: www.courant.com/writeletter.]

Copyright © 2008, The Hartford Courant