Connecticut Repeals Death Penalty

Kevin Horan/Stone(HARTFORD, Conn.) -- Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy signed the state's death penalty repeal bill into law Wednesday, but the new law will not affect the 11 convicted killers already on death row, including the two men who killed the wife and daughters of Dr. William Petit.

The bill signing made Connecticut the seventeenth state to abolish the death penalty.

The new law replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole. It abolished the death penalty for future cases only and does not affect those on death row curently in the state.

The state has only put to death two people in the past 52 years and both had volunteered for it.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio