UPDATE: Dr. William Petit Reacts to Death Penalty Ruling

All prisoners that had been on Connecticut’s death row have been spared the death penalty as the Connecticut State Supreme Court ruled Thursday morning that the death penalty violates the state’s constitution.

State lawmakers got rid of the death penalty in 2012, but made it so that inmates already on death row would be executed.

The court ruled in the 4-3 decision.

The provision was added after the trials of Cheshire home invasion killers and rapists Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, according to the Hartford Courant. Both are on death row.

Hayes and Komisarjevsky were both convicted, in separate trials, with felony murder and sentenced to death for the 2007 killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her children, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17.

Dr. William Petit, the lone survivor in the home invasion, issued the following statement via NBC Connecticut:

“The dissenting justices clearly state how the four members of the majority have disregarded keystones of our governmental structure such as the separation of powers and the role of judicial precedent to reach the decision they hand down today. The death penalty and its application is a highly charged topic with profound emotional impact, particularly on the victims and their loved ones. Justice Espinosa, in her dissent especially, forcefully and compassionately recognizes that devastating impact.”

Also shortly after state lawmakers adopted the death penalty ban in 2012, convicted killer Eduardo Santiago’s death sentence was overturned and led to the current court proceedings, the Courant reports. Santiago killed Joseph Niwinski in West Hartford in 2000.

There was some debate whether the law would hold-up in court when it was passed.

“In prospectively abolishing the death penalty, the legislature did not simply express the will of the people that it no longer makes sense to maintain the costly and unsatisfying charade of a capital punishment scheme in which no one ever receives the ultimate punishment,” The concurring judges wrote in their opinion. “...Because such a system fails to comport with our abiding freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, we hold that capital punishment, as currently applied, violates the constitution of Connecticut.”

Governor Dannel P. Malloy released the following statement in response to the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision today regarding Connecticut’s former capital punishment law:

“In 2012, Connecticut joined 16 other states and the majority of the industrialized world in replacing capital punishment with the punishment of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since then, two additional states have abolished capital punishment. When Connecticut’s law was passed, it did not apply to the 11 inmates currently serving on death row. We will continue to look to the judicial system for additional guidance on this rule. But it’s clear that those currently serving on death row will serve the rest of their life in a Department of Corrections facility with no possibility of ever obtaining freedom.

“In the last 54 years, Connecticut has only executed two inmates, both of whom volunteered for the execution. Many on death row are able to take advantage of endless appeals that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, and give those convicted killers an undeserved platform for public attention.

“Capital punishment is a difficult issue that is deeply personal for many Connecticut residents. I arrived at my opposition to capital punishment after careful thought and through many years of experience in the criminal justice system, first as a prosecutor and then as an attorney and public servant.

“Everyone arrives at their position on this difficult issue on their own terms, and everyone should have respect for differing opinions on what is a difficult and moral issue for both sides.

“Today is a somber day where our focus should not be on the 11 men sitting on death row, but with their victims and those surviving families members. My thoughts and prayers are with them during what must be a difficult day,” Malloy concluded in his statement.

The last person executed in Connecticut was serial killer Michael Ross in 2005, and he fought to have the appeal process end so he could die. There are 11 state prisoners on death row.