CONN. League of Women Voters: says death penalty should be abolished

• Study shows it is unfair, waste of money

The local chapter joins a debate revived when the state Court of Appeals ruled last year that a provision in the New York law was unconstitutional. Assembly committees will have a hearing on the law in Albany today. "The league believes that efforts to revive the death penalty law in New York should be abandoned," said Elizabeth Orton, chairwoman of the Oneonta leagues study group. "The use of life without parole is the primary alternative sentence." The death penalty should be abolished because innocent defendants have died, Orton said Monday, and the practice is barbaric. The state league stated that New York, as part of a civilized society, shouldn't be executing people, and Orton said an "eye-for-an-eye" approach to punishment leaves people blind.  The League of Women Voters of the Oneonta Area recently announced its opposition after completing a study last year. The review concluded the death penalty was unfair, unworkable and a waste of taxpayers money, and the state league took the same position, Peg Hathaway, spokeswoman for the local chapter, said Monday.No defendant in New York has been executed since the 1995 death penalty law passed. [more]

• The two states together account for nearly half of all executions in the United States over the past 29 years. [more]
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