Capital punishment in Connecticut

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Connecticut is currently one of only two states of New England where capital punishment is legal. Unlike the second, New Hampshire, where the last execution to date took place in 1939, Connecticut has executed one person in the post-Furman era (since 1976).

Contents

[edit] History

Connecticut performed 126 executions from 1639 to 1960. Twenty-four of these execution were prior to statehood, 102 since.[1].

All executions prior to 1937 were carried out by hanging; between 1937 and 1960, the electric chair became the only legal method of execution.

A Native American named Nepauduck was the first person executed in present-State area (now New Haven County) on January 30, 1639. The first woman executed was Mary Johnson, hanged for witchcraft in 1649.

The last person executed for crime other than murder was an African-American 20-year-old man named Amos Adams, hanged for rape on November 20, 1830.[2].

The first person executed by electrocution was James McElroy on February 10, 1937.

In the pre-Furman period, Connecticut performed 108 hangings and 18 electrocutions. The last pre-Furman execution in Connecticut took place on May 17, 1960[3], when Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky was electrocuted for six murders committed during a string of armed robberies. This was also the last execution in New England in the pre-Furman era.

[edit] Ages of the condemned

The State of Connecticut legally executed one of the youngest persons in the United States. Native American 12-year-old girl Hannah Ocuish was hanged on December 20, 1786 in New London County for the murder of a young white girl.

Until the 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, juveniles over the age of 16 could be sentenced to death because state law only required that the offender be tried in adult court to face the death penalty. However, no juveniles have been sentenced to death in the state in recent memory. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=27&did=203 [4].

Lethal injection replaced the electric chair, not used since Taborsky's execution, in 1995[5].

Unlike most of the other states, the Governor of Connecticut cannot commute the death sentence imposed under State law or pardon a death row inmate. This is determined by the Board of Clemency, on which the Governor does not sit. The other states where the Board has sole authority are Georgia and Idaho[6].

[edit] Inmates executed

The only person executed since 1977 in Connecticut was serial killer and rapist Michael Bruce Ross on May 13, 2005.[7]

No. Name Date of Execution Victims Governor
1 Michael Bruce Ross May 13, 2005 Robin Stavinsky, April Brunais, Wendy Baribeault, and Leslie Shelley M. Jodi Rell

[edit] Inmates sentenced to death

There are currently ten inmates sentenced to death in Connecticut.

No. Name Age Race Sex Crime
1 Lazale Ashby 23 Black Male Ashby was convicted of raping and murdering his 21-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Garcia, in her Hartford apartment on December 2, 2002. The crime occurred four days after Ashby's 18th birthday.[2] Ashby has also been charged in two unrelated sexual assaults as well as the murder of Nahshon Cohen and the attempted murder of Valentino Boland during an apparent armed robbery.
2 Robert Breton 61 White Male Robert Breton, Sr. was sentenced to death in 1989. He was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of capital felony for the December 13, 1987, beating and stabbing deaths of his 38-year-old ex-wife, JoAnn Breton, and their 16-year-old son, Robert Breton, Jr. In the early morning of December 13, 1987, Breton entered the Waterbury apartment that his ex-wife rented after their divorce 11 months earlier. Surprising her while she slept, he slashed at her with a sharp 5-inch knife and pounded her with his fists. JoAnn Breton scrambled across the room. Her ex-husband followed and killed her by thrusting the knife through her neck, opening a major artery. Robert Breton, Jr. heard his mother's screams and ran into her room, where his father attacked him. Bleeding from his arms, hands, and fingers, the younger Breton tried to escape down a flight of stairs. His father pursued him, overtaking his son at the bottom of the staircase and continuing the attack. Robert, Jr. bled to death from a wound that severed his carotid artery. Police found him, clad only in his underwear, at the bottom of the stairs, his head propped against a wall.[3][4]
3 Jessie Campbell III 28 Black Male Campbell was convicted of capital felony, murder, attempted murder, first-degree assault, and weapons violations for the August 26, 2000, shooting deaths in Hartford of 20-year-old LaTaysha Logan and 18-year-old Desiree Privette and the shooting of Privette's aunt, Carolyn Privette.[5]
4 Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb 46 Black Male Sedrick Cobb was sentenced to death in 1991. The former deliveryman from Naugatuck was convicted of the rape and murder of 23-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown, whom he kidnapped from a Waterbury department store parking lot on December 16, 1989. Cobb flattened one tire of Ashe’s car using a valve stem remover and, when she returned, offered to help her change the tire. When he asked her for a ride to his car, she obliged. He then forced her at knifepoint to drive to a secluded road and raped her. Cobb then bound and gagged Ashe with fiberglass tape and carried her to a concrete dam. He pushed her, and she fell 23 feet into the shallow, icy water below. Ashe managed to free her hands by rubbing the tape across wire mesh protruding from the concrete and gouged her face trying in vain to remove the tape across her mouth. When she tried to crawl up the bank to freedom, Cobb forced her, face down, back into the water. Her ice-encrusted body was found on Christmas Day of 1989.[6] [7]
5 Robert Courchesne 50 White Male Courchesne was convicted of capital felony by a three-judge panel in the September 15, 1998, deaths of Demetris Rodgers and her baby. Rodgers was eight months pregnant when she was stabbed over a $410 drug debt. Her baby was delivered by emergency Caesarean section minutes after her death, but died 42 days later.[8]
6 Russell Peeler, Jr. 36 Black Male Peeler was convicted of ordering his younger brother to kill Karen Clarke and her eight-year-old son, Leroy "B.J." Brown, Junior, in their Bridgeport duplex on January 8, 1999. The boy was expected to be the key witness against Peeler in the fatal shooting of Clarke's boyfriend. Peeler is the only inmate on Connecticut's Death Row who did not actually commit murder.[9] Rather, he ordered his brother to commit the murder. [10]
7 Richard Reynolds 39 Black Male Reynolds, a Brooklyn, New York, crack dealer, was convicted in the December 18, 1992, murder of 34-year-old Waterbury Police Officer Walter T. Williams.[11] While being searched by Williams, Reynolds bumped against him to determine if the officer was wearing a bulletproof vest. Reynolds then shot Williams point-blank in the head with a handgun.[12]
8 Todd Rizzo 29 White Male Rizzo confessed to, and was convicted of, the 1997 murder of 13-year-old Stanley Edwards of Waterbury. He lured Edwards into his backyard under the guise of hunting snakes and then hit him 13 times with a three-pound sledgehammer.[13]
9 Eduardo Santiago 28 White Male Santiago was convicted of capital felony and murder charges after shooting Joseph Niwinski in the left temple as he slept in his West Hartford apartment in December 2000.[14] Prosecutors say Santiago carried out a murder-for-hire scheme in which he agreed to kill Niwinski in exchange for a broken snowmobile and his credit card debt being paid off.[15]
10 Daniel Webb 45 Black Male Webb was convicted of kidnapping and murder for the 1989 slaying in Hartford of Diane Gellenbeck, a 37-year-old Connecticut National Bank vice president.[16] Prior to this, Webb already had an extensive criminal record including a 1983 robbery conviction, 1984 rape and kidnapping conviction and an arrest in 1987 for rape. While out on bail after the 1987 arrest he rapes one woman, robs and assaults another and murders Gallenback.

[edit] See also

Capital punishment in the United States

[edit] References

  1. ^ Regional Studies Northeast
  2. ^ http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/CONNECTICUT.htm
  3. ^ Executions since 1894, CT State Library
  4. ^ [1]<ref> ==Present== Connecticut reinstated the death penalty on [[January 10]], [[1973]]<ref>[http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/state/ Death Penalty Information Center<!-- Bot generated title -->]</li> <li id="cite_note-4">'''[[#cite_ref-4|^]]''' http://capitaldefenseweekly.com/chair.htm</li> <li id="cite_note-5">'''[[#cite_ref-5|^]]''' [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=126&scid=13 Clemency<!-- Bot generated title -->]</li> <li id="cite_note-6">'''[[#cite_ref-6|^]]''' [http://www.cslib.org/capitalpunishment.htm#ross Michael Ross - Selected Chronology, CT State Library]</li></ol></ref>

[edit] External links


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Capital punishment in the United States
In depth
Lists of those executed