CONN. League of Women Voters: says death penalty should be abolished
Saturday, January 29, 2005 at 04:24AM
TheSpook
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]