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No Cost/Mitigation Argument Allowed in Connecticut Trial

By Steve Hall

"Conn. judge: Jury can't consider execution cost," is the title of John Christoffersen's AP report, via Google News. A burglar who killed a woman and her two children in a home invasion cannot bring up the high cost of executions to try to avoid the death penalty, a judge ruled Thursday, saying it "makes no moral sense" to select a punishment based on dollars and cents. New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue ruled against attorneys for Steven Hayes, who wanted to include the cost as a mitigating factor in trying to persuade jurors to sentence Hayes to life in prison. His attorneys say studies have shown life sentences are cheaper overall than death sentences, factoring in incarceration and appeal costs. The judge said jurors have the task of "using reasoned moral judgment, not counting dollars and cents" in deciding life-or-death punishment...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on October 14, 2010 (boomark / email).