ACLU Opposes Limit On Stays Of Execution

To limit the periods of stay of execution and to rush toward the irreversible penalty of death is inconsistent with the Constitution and with justice, the ACLU has told Connecticut legislators.

Testifying before the joint committee on judiciary, Legal Director Sandra Staub urged rejection of House Bill 5445 “To protect the rights of the innocent,” she said, “the ACLU-CT urges this committee to reject House Bill 5445, which would place time limits on pleas of habeas corpus and the opportunity for review of mistakes in capital trials.”

Reminding legislators that the General Assembly a year ago voted to abolish the death penalty – an act vetoed by Gov. Jodi Rell – Staub urged that “If the death penalty remains, we must do whatever necessary to preserve the courts’ ability to review the capital trial for inevitable mistakes.

“To limit the periods of stay of execution and to rush toward the irreversible penalty of death,” Staub added, “is inconsistent with the Constitution and with justice.”

Thomas Jefferson, she told legislators, deemed the right of habeas corpus -- the plea in a stay of execution -- an “essential principle of our government.”

And Staub quoted U.S. Judge Michael Ponsor, in a 2001 Boston Globe op-ed:

“A legal regimen relying on the death penalty will inevitably execute innocent people – not too often, one hopes, but undoubtedly sometimes. Mistakes will be made because it is simply not possible to do something this difficult perfectly, all the time. Any honest proponent of capital punishment must face this fact.”

The bill before the committee, she said “takes the already flawed capital punishment system and makes it worse.”

ACLU position on the death penalty