{"id":31876,"date":"2011-03-30T08:11:08","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T12:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=31876"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:37:07","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:37:07","slug":"death-penalty-debate-in-connecticut-dates-back-centuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/03\/death-penalty-debate-in-connecticut-dates-back-centuries\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Penalty Debate in Connecticut Dates Back Centuries"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Larry<\/a>
History professor Larry Goodheart with his new book, which discusses the history of the death penalty in Connecticut. Photo by Sean Flynn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After several years researching the history of the death penalty in Connecticut, Professor Lawrence Goodheart is certain of one thing: of 158 people put to death for crimes in the Nutmeg State, \u201cNone of them were hedge fund managers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodheart, of course, was speaking with tongue in cheek. But his point is clear \u2013 all 158 people were poor, on the margins of society, except for one man, Michael Ross, the Cornell-educated serial killer who volunteered to waive his rights to appeal and, in 2005, was put to death by lethal injection.<\/p>\n

Ross was the first person to die at the hands of the state since another serial killer, Joseph \u2018Mad Dog\u2019 Taborsky, in 1960. Taborsky, too, died only after voluntarily waiving his rights.<\/p>\n

Goodheart, a history professor at UConn\u2019s Hartford campus, is author of the book The Solemn Sentence of Death: Capital Punishment in Connecticut<\/em><\/a>, which was just released by the University of Massachusetts Press.<\/p>\n

He says Taborsky may also have something in common with another killer, Stephen Hayes, and his alleged accomplice in the heinous Cheshire murders, Joshua Komisarjevsky: both may scuttle legislative moves to end the death penalty in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time in 50 years there\u2019s been a legislature and a governor ready to abolish the death penalty,\u201d says Goodheart. \u201cBut the Cheshire murders were so horrific that the bill still may not make it through. A similar thing happened in 1960 when Ribicoff was governor and it looked like the death penalty might be abolished, but Taborsky\u2019s crimes ended that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would be a shame, says Goodheart, who believes Connecticut\u2019s death penalty is not enforceable. For that reason, and as an outcome of his research for the book, Goodheart says he now opposes the death penalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe research convinced me,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve reviewed enough cases \u2013 immigrants, witches, people on the social margins. A Waterbury prosecutor once said the penalty is only for the worst of the worst, and that\u2019s pretty much been true since the 1930s. But now it\u2019s really a question of whether it\u2019s ethical for the state to kill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unequal justice<\/strong><\/p>\n

Throughout his research, which Goodheart began before the 2005 execution of Ross, he came across gross inequities in the implementation of the death penalty in Connecticut. Eleven people were hanged for witchcraft \u2013 nine women and two of their husbands. The others were single, poor, exhibited odd behaviors, or were cantankerous. In the 18th century, six men were hanged in Connecticut for rape. Of those, five were black, and all were put to death for attacks on white women.<\/p>\n

In the mid-19th century, a \u2018glut\u2019 of Irish was executed after they fled the Potato Famine; and other new immigrants proved to be popular targets until about 1930. During that time about 60 people, many of them Italian, were executed. It was during that period that the oldest person ever executed in Connecticut \u2013 a 73-year-old European Jew \u2013 was killed.<\/p>\n

Still, Goodheart says, Connecticut citizens and legislators have long wrestled with the broader philosophical view of the death penalty. During the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, and after Connecticut had laid to rest its own cadre of witches, a judge finally put a stop to the practice, saying he was not going to let a woman who was on trial for witchcraft be put to death because \u201cpeople said she could turn into a cat.\u201d Rather, he ruled, the penalty could only apply if at least two eye witnesses testified that a crime had been committed.<\/p>\n

A gender code took center stage in 1786, when an 11-year-old \u2013 the youngest ever executed in Connecticut and possibly in the nation \u2013 was put to death, an execution so shocking that after that even women who were convicted of murder were not executed.<\/p>\n

Then, in 1817, after a black man was hanged for rape, the state\u2019s law was changed to what it largely is today, with only murder being considered a capital offense. For the previous 200 years, there had been up to 18 crimes considered punishable by death, including bestiality and sodomy. In the case of sodomy, Goodheart found a rare \u2018man of means\u2019 who was apparently very active, but his money held sway and he was merely fined.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to see how many people of means have been charged with capital crimes but escaped the death penalty because of their wealth,\u201d Goodheart says, \u201cbut it\u2019s just too broad a subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

The means of execution<\/strong><\/p>\n

The means by which Connecticut has executed ‘the worst of the worst’ also has softened since incorporation. Among the first people executed in the state were two American Indians who were beheaded. Until 1833, convicted felons were hanged in public, with as many as 10,000-15,000 people traveling up to 25 miles to attend a hanging. It was, says Goodheart, \u201ca ritual of death emblematic of divine punishment and civic retribution for all to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1830s, however, people began to see public executions as far too degrading for a democratic citizenry, and hangings were then confined to the county jails \u2013 although sheriffs continued to invite dozens of friends.<\/p>\n

For Ross\u2019 execution, only a handful attended.<\/p>\n

All of which leads to today, says Goodheart, and the question of how society should handle violent people. Currently, 16 states have abolished the death penalty, he notes. In New England, besides Connecticut, only New Hampshire still has the death penalty on its books; but there, too, the death chamber has been silent since the 1950s. Rhode Island led the way, abolishing its statute in the 1800s.<\/p>\n

Internationally, the split is similar. Nearly all European nations have banned the death penalty, and Turkey abolished it a decade ago. In the West, with the exception of the United States, the death penalty is very much in decline, Goodheart says.<\/p>\n

Where Connecticut goes is unknown, he adds, but citizens will get their first look at the future on April 15, when the General Assembly\u2019s Judiciary Committee must either report the bill out, sending it to the full legislature for consideration, or essentially kill it by not sending it on. Should the latter occur, it could still see the light of day through petition, but the committee\u2019s thoughts will have been made clear.<\/p>\n

Goodheart will discuss the book at the UConn Co-op on April 20 at 4 p.m. He is also scheduled to talk at the Hartford Campus on April 21 at 12:30 p.m. The location has not yet been announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new book by historian Larry Goodheart examines the history of the death penalty in Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[37],"class_list":["post-31876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 18:28:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31876"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36555,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31876\/revisions\/36555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31876"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=31876"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=31876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}