The election of anti-death penalty candidate Dan Malloy in the midst of the gruesome Cheshire home invasion trials is “just one of the many indications that capital punishment is on the wane” nationwide, Steve Chapman says at the Chicago Tribune.
Among other factors contributing to the decline of the death penalty, he says, is the cost. One authority says executions have become “an extreme luxury item” for cash-strapped states. One recent study found that New Jersey taxpayers spent $250 million over 23 years for a capital punishment system that executed no one; the state has since repealed it.