BTL:Campaign Launched to Stop Connecticut's First Execution in 40 Years

Campaign Launched to Stop Connecticut's First Execution in 40 Years

Interview with Robert Nave, director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

On Jan. 26, 2005, the state of Connecticut is set to execute its first death row prisoner in 40 years. Michael Ross, 45, has admitted raping and strangling eight young women in the early 1980s. Republican Gov. Jodi Rell declined to postpone this execution until after the state's next legislative session, which would have allowed legislators to debate and possibly pass a bill abolishing capital punishment. Now it appears that the only thing that can save Ross is if he reverses his position of wanting to be executed and initiates new appeals, or his former attorneys succeed in persuading a judge that he was not competent to make decisions related to his case.

Twelve states, including four in New England, have banned the death penalty. In a 2003 poll, Connecticut residents favored the death penalty 60 to 34 percent. But when the choice is execution or life without parole, less than half supported capital punishment. Nationally, support for the death penalty has dropped from a high of 80 percent in 1994 to 70 percent this year. But, again, when the option of life in prison without parole is offered as an alternative, support for the death penalty drops to 50 percent. Capital punishment, long banned in developed nations around the world, has been criticized in the U.S. for being racially, economically and geographically discriminatory, disproportionately affecting people of color and the poor who are often denied adequate legal representation.

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Robert Nave, director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty and Amnesty International's Death Penalty Abolition coordinator in the state. Nave talks about why he opposes capital punishment and what his group and others are doing to outlaw the death penalty in Connecticut.

Contact the network by calling the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty at (203) 206-9854, or visit their website at http://www.cnadp.org

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