A cure for Connecticut’s budget-deficit woes?
The state should advertise itself as the best place to prosecute, convict and sentence hideous murderers. We could rent out our prisons, our prosecutors and our politicians to jurisdictions that are faced with murderers that they don’t know what to do with.
The idea came to mind following the recent comment made by a man in Chicago who received a heart transplant from a murder victim.
Feeling some loyalty to the corpse, Brian Troy spoke on the victim’s behalf at the sentencing hearing for the murderer, suggesting to the judge that the thug should be “in prison until the day he dies.”
A worthy objective, to be sure, but very difficult to achieve in many jurisdictions. While some states actually execute killers, many states have “life sentences” that somehow don’t really seem to mean that you’re actually sentenced to life in prison. It’s a very complicated world, full of probation and parole and time off for good behavior. That’s where Connecticut could shine — for a price.
Bring all the potential “life sentence” creatures to Connecticut and convict them of a capital crime; that is, sentence them to death, Connecticut-style.
What that will mean is that they will spend the rest of their lives in prison — which is sort of what many jurisdictions actually want.
A Fee For Pretending
There is no state better than Connecticut at pretending it has a death penalty; of putting people on trial for capital crimes; of solemnly putting juries through the make-believe agony of deciding on a death-penalty sentence. But the great thing is, we don’t really mean it.
Our guys on “Death Row” just sit there, for months, for years, for decades, while the state continues to pretend that one of these days we’ll get around to actually executing them. We could make that promise to other states, charge them a fee for pretending to execute their murderers, and instead, feed them, give them fresh linen, and let them hang out in prison, “until the day they die.”
Oh, yes, we finally got around to executing Michael Ross, the serial killer who had to beg to be executed. And it makes no difference that the majority of Connecticut residents support the death penalty. The politicians don’t think it’s “progressive” to actually adhere to the rule of law. Instead, we convict our murderers and send them away to “Death Row,” where they will eventually die of old age. Ross is the only Connecticut ‘Death Row” inmate executed since 1973.
Costly Justice
The General Assembly acknowledged the absurdity of the situation this year, with a piece of legislation to do away with the death penalty, because the expense of pretending to litigate death penalty cases wasn’t worth the reality that we don’t have any intention of killing anyone. Rell vetoed the bill, with the explanation that some folks really do deserve to be executed — in theory.
The discussion was worth the effort, even if it seems a bit strange to tinker with the justice machine because faking justice is too expensive.
Even as we speak, other states fiddle with their “death penalty.” Texas, which shows much more enthusiasm for actually executing people sentenced to die, just commuted the death penalty of a creature who strangled, robbed, gagged and beat a young women to death, but, alas, he’s a bit “mentally impaired.”
Texas could have sent him to Connecticut for trial, and then not had to worry about the silly death-penalty thing. He would have sat there on “Death Row,” waiting for old age to do its job.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
