Video: Bin Laden News Shows Need for CT Death Penalty, Says Lawmaker

A local state representative said Osama bin Laden’s death is an example as to why Connecticut should maintain its death penalty law.

State Rep. David Labriola, R-Oxford, told Naugatuck Patch he plans on bringing up the bin Laden as an example why there still should be a death penalty, particularly for the most violent of criminals.

“I would argue that there are some instances when evil is so present in a person, for example in the (2007) Cheshire killings, or Osama bin Laden,” Labriola said. “(In these cases) the only just solution is the death penalty.”

The General Assembly is preparing to discuss legislation in the coming weeks on repealing the death penalty, Labriola said. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, has said he is in favor of repealing the law. State Democrats have said the appeals process draws out the death penalty sentences for years, in which the perpetrators are never actually put to death.

Labriola, an attorney in Naugatuck, has instead argued that the appeals process should be reformed so the victims’ families in a death penalty case can have some closure knowing the criminal has been put to death.