A modest proposal

"Mr Hayes, I know you can not read this but you should suffer and have a painful death for the crime you have committed." - posted by Die, Die, Die on The Bristol Press website
"Woohoo, death to the Monster Hayes! I hope Connecticut doesn't wait too long to carry out the sentence." -- posted by sirieulyheather on Twitter
Not surprisingly, there's joy across Connecticut that a jury in New Haven sentenced Steven Hayes to death for strangling a Cheshire mother to death and setting lashing her two daughters to their beds, leaving them to die in a fire.
While the jurors themselves are holding hands and wiping away tears, most of the reaction elsewhere is more akin to the wild woops of a frenzied football crowd.
That got me thinking.... The mob wants blood (and, really, who can blame them?). And Connecticut needs some greenbacks.
So how about we hang Hayes from the 50-yard line at Rentschler Field? We can sell tickets to the highest bidders -- and maybe have a lottery to give poorer residents a chance at winning some good seats. I figure there must be 20,000 people or more who would pay $200 or more for a chance to watch Hayes depart the planet.
That's $4 million in cold, hard cash, at a minimum, and it can all go to the state's depleted coffers.
But the real money is probably in selling the television rights.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Fox might be interested in acquiring the rights, but of course we should bid it out. It's always possible that a dark horse contender might pay even more.
Oh, sure, there are some who would cringe at a TV show of Hayes' execution, but we're talking serious money here -- millions of dollars for sure.
The best part is that we can sell the tickets and the rights up front so the state can pocket the money right away.
If it turns out that endless legal delays and bizarre, upsetting appeals put the whole thing off for 10 or 15 years, well, taxpayers at least get something out of it quick. And if in the end the show doesn't go on, refunds would not include interest so the state would still make out.
Chances are pretty good, too, that the state can do it all twice when Hayes' partner in crime goes on trial early next year.
Why should the state keep losing money on the death penalty? Let's return to the good old days when big crowds gathered for a hanging -- and make some money off it while we're at it.
*****
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

State GOP chair: Colapietro is "a liar"

State Republican Party leader Chris Healy just issued this press release:
Colapietro Is All Double-Talk on Death Penalty
State Sen. Thomas Colapietro, D-Bristol, is trying to fool voters by talking tough on the state death penalty even though he voted to eliminate it this year, according to Republican State Party Chairman Chris Healy Thursday.
“Colapietro is a liar on a life and death issue and now he has been caught red-handed,” said Healy. “He knows the people of Bristol and Plainville understand the death penalty shouldn’t be abolished, but as usual, Colapietro words don’t match his record.”
Healy said Colapietro supported abolishing the death penalty on May 22nd. The bill was approved by the Democratic Legislature and vetoed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Neither chamber attempted to override the veto. Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy supports repealing the death penalty while Republican Tom Foley is for such punishment.
“Electing Dan Malloy and Tom Colapietro means no death penalty for those who deserve it,” said Healy. “No one will be safe.”
Colapietro in comments to the Bristol Press claimed the death penalty was “a joke,” and “that it merely made defense lawyers rich.”
“Aside from being a bully, Tom Colapietro has shown himself truly unbalanced,” said Healy. “Colapietro votes to abolish the death penalty, claims he is a tough guy but has never challenged the current laws that allow death row inmates to make endless appeals.”
Colapietro claims his support for being for “three strikes, “ sentencing but it’s not backed up with either statements or legislative proposals to expedite the imposition of the death penalty.
“Colapietro has long shot his mouth off, blaming others for his problems and those of the world,” said Healy. “After 18 years, Tom Colapietro has delivered nothing for victims of violent crimes or supported making violent criminals pay the ultimate price.”
*****
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Colapietro clarifies stance on death penalty

State Sen. Tom Colapietro, a Bristol Democrat, just issued this press release:

Colapietro Clarifies His Position on the Death Penalty

“Serial killers deserve death but the system is broken and doesn’t provide justice. We need to fix that.”

Senator Tom Colapietro released a statement clarifying his position on the death penalty, and criticized Connecticut’s current system of capital punishment as broken and unworkable.
“Let me be absolutely clear: I believe in the death penalty. I believe it provides justice to the families of victims left behind by serial killers and other heinous criminals. I wish that we had a working system of capital punishment in Connecticut today—the sad reality is, we don’t,” said Senator Colapietro.
He continued, “I would like to see a workable death penalty. Today’s system does nothing but fill lawyer’s pockets full of taxpayer money. It’s an endless series of appeals that goes nowhere, and gives justice to nobody. It lets the worst of all criminals sit in their cells and escape execution while taxpayers foot the bill. What a waste! That’s the broken system I voted against.”
“In more than forty years, Connecticut has only executed one criminal sentenced to death: Michael Ross. He deserved to die, but he was only executed because he asked to be. That’s legal suicide, not a functioning system of capital punishment that works properly.”
“We need legislation that will fix Connecticut’s death penalty and make it truly workable. A capital punishment system should convict the guilty, exonerate the innocent, and put the very worst killers to death swiftly. That’s justice, for the state and for victim’s families,” concluded Senator Colapietro.
*****
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Colapietro calls death penalty 'a joke'

In the middle of the trial of Steven Hayes, whose lawyer admits he raped and murdered Jennifer Hawke-Petit in Cheshire three years during one of the most horrible crimes in Connecticut history, it’s tough to speak out against the death penalty.
But state Sen. Tom Colapietro, a Bristol Democrat, said he still thinks it’s a bad idea.
“The death penalty is the biggest joke that I ever heard,” Colapietro said. Voting against it, he said, “is just plain old common sense.”
He said that while he could “vote either way” on the death penalty in the abstract, he opposes it because he’s concerned the state might put an innocent person to death someday and because the existing system is merely a way to lawyers employed.
“The only people who are going to make money from it are the lawyers,” said Colapietro, a Bristol Democrat who has represented the 31st District since 1992. He said as long as attorneys can file endless appeals, they’ll keep raking it in from death penalty cases.
Colapietro’s Republican challenger, Jason Welch of Bristol, said the state needs “a viable death penalty.”
He said the Petit case itself shows that society should have the death penalty as “the last resort” for especially heinous crimes.
Colapietro countered that because Welch is a lawyer – who handles claims related to construction cases – he would naturally want to keep the death penalty.
The death penalty, he said, “is job security for lawyers.”
Click here for the story.
*****
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

A death in Texas

It appears from a stellar New Yorker story by David Grann this week -- a piece, by the way, that shows how important journalism can be -- that Texas executed an innocent man.
Whether you support or oppose the death penalty, you should read it.

*******
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com