UConn Poll Finds Residents Favor Inmate's Right to Seek Own Execution

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By Associated Press

Published: 08/06/2003

A majority of Connecticut residents favor the death penalty and feel death-row inmates should be allowed to expedite their executions, according to a new UConn poll.
Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis said they approve of the death penalty while 32 percent said they were either somewhat or strongly opposed to capital punishment.
The telephone poll of 502 randomly selected state residents was conducted between July 14 and July 23. It has a sampling error margin of about 4 percentage points.
Six of ten people surveyed said they would support a death-row inmate who wanted to proceed with an execution over the wishes of the inmate's attorneys.
The question was posed after convicted killer Sedrick Cobb's recent request to stop all his appeals. Cobb, who received a death sentence for the December 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of 23-year-old Julia Ashe, has since changed his mind and asked to continue with his appeals.
The same percentage of people who support the death penalty (58 percent) said they would rather see a guilty person go free than an innocent person be convicted.
Nobody has been executed in Connecticut since May 1960 when Joseph 'Mad Dog' Taborsky was sent to the electric chair for a murder and robbery spree.

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