At one of the Memorial Day picnics I went to this weekend, a friend told me that Gov. Rell asked the Senate to suspend the normal rules and send the death penalty bill to her desk so she could veto it right away. I understand the feeling, many of us probably would have had much more pleasant Memorial Day Weekends, if we didn’t have to spend time thinking about those who have died and about if others should be killed. After all, Memorial Day is supposed to be a fun filled weekend kicking off the beginning of summer and not a time for thinking about difficult issues, right?

Instead, I went from one picnic to the next where a common topic was the death penalty. Perhaps it is the circles I move in, but no one at any of the picnic I attended supports the death penalty. I brought up some of the concerns that I had heard during the Senate debate about the death penalty, and the arguments that had been presented in favor of the death penalty were not considered persuasive. The closest that anyone came to supporting the arguments were to refer to former Gov. Cuomo of New York who was reputed to have said something to the effect that if a loved one of his was brutally murdered, he might also be inclined to sin, to do the wrong thing, and seek vengeance.

I spoke with a trial attorney at one party who talked about the two death penalty cases currently being considered in Connecticut. It seems as if everyone is well acquainted with the Cheshire home invasion case. It plays well to all of our fears. Dr. Petit and his family lived in a safe neighborhood where things like this aren’t supposed to happen.

Dr. Petit in his impassioned arguments for the death penalty referred those who commit heinous murder as animals. It is much easier to seek the death of a mere animal than a fellow human being that has transgressed what Dr. Petit calls the most sacrosanct law. If I, or the former Gov. Cuomo were in such a situation as Dr. Petit, we might write something similar.

Yet let’s look, for a moment at the other death penalty case currently being considered in Connecticut. On the morning of Sept. 7, 2006, Richard Roszkowski murdered 39-year-old Holly Flannery, 38-year-old Thomas Gaudet and 9-year-old Kylie Flannery. According to testimony, Mr. Roszkowski believed that he had cancer. He told a friend that “he wasn’t going out that way, but was going to shoot everyone he had grudges against and have the cops shoot him dead.” Ms. Flannery his first target. The night before the murders Mr. Roszkowski did “a lot” of cocaine and heroin.

Our culture is full of songs about murders of passion, and as I write this, a recording of one of many lover’s murder ballads comes on the radio. It seems as if we are more tolerant of murder when it takes place somewhere else, when it is tied up in poverty, drugs, and passion.

But what about Kylie Flannery, the fourth grader from Thomas Hooker School who saw her mother murdered, who tried to flee, was shot in the leg, and then later as she lay on the ground, shot in the head? Surely this will stir the emotions and convince a jury to give the death penalty.

According to the Connecticut Post, Public Defender Joseph Bruckmann announced that he planned “to present two mental health experts, one of them a nationally known opponent of the death penalty”. Senior Assistant State’s Attorney C. Robert Satti Jr. asked for the penalty portion of the trial to be postponed so that he would have “more time to confer with experts of his own so that he will be able to cross-examine the defense witnesses”. Perhaps, Richard Roszkowski will become the next Michael Ross, seeking his own death as an escape from death row.

I’ve spent this morning reading about the murder, the trial and those who mourn the death of Kylie Flannery. Friends are encouraging me to go to the trial and blog about it. The trial is currently schedule to start on Monday when I’ll be in Washington.

I don’t really want to go listen to the testimony. It seems like it would be too painful. No, it would be much easier to simply let the trial go on with minimal press coverage, just like it would have been easier if Gov. Rell had gotten a chance to veto the Death Penalty Bill on Friday and spared all of us, the introspection that these topics bring up. It would have been much easier if we could simply have gone and enjoyed watching the latest Terminator movie.

But sometimes, we are called to take the difficult course. Sometimes we have to think about grief, anger, vengeance and what we aspire to be as human beings. Sometimes we must admit that we too are sinners and are drawn at times to take vengeance into our own hands.

No, I did not escape struggling with my own conscience about the death penalty. With the upcoming trials, I may not be able to. I pray that Gov. Rell does not find an easy escape from her own conscience either.