The death penalty in Connecticut is definitely not dead yet. It may have seemed settled in late August, in the case of State v. Santiago, when a sharply divided Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the legislature's 2012 vote to abolish the death penalty, but only for future capital cases, violated the state constitution. The 4-3 majority held that capital punishment was cruel and unusual under Connecticut's Constitution and did not comply with the state's evolved standards of decency.

Ever since, appellate lawyers in the Chief State's Attorney's Office have taken ambitious and unprecedented steps to keep the death penalty alive for the 11 men who were still on death row when Santiago was decided. Those inmates include the two perpetrators of the Cheshire home invasion murders and Russell Peeler, who ordered the execution of an 8-year-old Bridgeport boy and his mother.

“Flabbergasting,” “troubling,” “amazing,” “unheard of” are some of the terms used by criminal defense lawyers and appellate experts in describing the new tactics. Most recently, there were state motions on Oct. 19 and 21 for an indefinite “stay of execution of entry of judgment” of the Santiago decision, which has, in effect, commuted the death sentences of the men on death row. The state is asking to reargue matters that seemed to have been resolved in Santiago in another case, State v. Peeler.