Connecticut abolished capital punishment in April 2012. That made Connecticut the 17th state in this country to do so and the fifth state to end the death penalty after 2010.

Soon, the state will have a chance to do what no other abolitionist state has done. In its next legislative session, Connecticut will consider a bill that would ban the sale of drugs or materials for use in an execution by any business in the state.

Two state legislators, Sen. Saud Anwar and Rep. Joshua Elliott, are leading this effort. As they argue: “This legislation is the logical and moral extension of our commitment to end capital punishment in our state. We do not believe in the death penalty for us here in Connecticut, and we will not support it anywhere else.”

This is not the first time the Nutmeg State has tried to lead the way in the campaign to end America’s death penalty.

At the time it abolished capital punishment, its new law only prevented any new death sentences from being imposed. It left 11 men on the state’s death row awaiting execution.

Three years later, in 2015, the state Supreme Court decided by a 4–3 vote that applying the death penalty only for past cases was unconstitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice Richard Palmer wrote, “We are persuaded that, following its prospective abolition, this state’s death penalty no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose.”

The court found that it would be “cruel and unusual” to keep anyone on death row in a state that had “determined that the machinery of death is irreparable or, at the least, unbecoming to a civilized modern state.”

With this decision, not only did Connecticut get out of the execution business, but it also appeared at the time that the court’s decision would, as the New York Times put it, “influence high courts in other states … where capital punishment has recently been challenged under the theory that society’s mores have evolved, transforming what was once an acceptable step into an unconstitutional punishment.”

In fact, courts in Colorado and Washington soon followed the Connecticut example. At that point, it seemed that Connecticut’s involvement with........

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