Connecticut abolished the death penalty in 2012, recognizing the deep racial and economic injustice it perpetrates as well as its high costs and failure to deter crime. However, in recent years, several Connecticut-based corporations have been found to be facilitating the death penalty in other jurisdictions around the country. This discovery exposed a major loophole in the state’s legal framework intended to ban the death penalty.

To address it, Connecticut lawmakers have introduced SB 430, would allow the state to deny or revoke a business license to any corporation that knowingly manufactures, tests, or sells drugs or medical devices for the death penalty. And it is incredibly timely as President Donald Trump has recently issued an executive order directing the U.S. Attorney General to expand the use of the death penalty. 

SB 430 reflects a longstanding industry position among pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors. All of the FDA-approved suppliers of drugs sought for use in lethal injection, have publicly opposed the use of their drugs in executions and implemented distribution controls to protect their drugs from being sold for this purpose. Such corporations have brought legal claims against states who sought to purchase their medicines in breach of these controls. The American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Pharmacists Association, and the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, among other professional associations, have all also come out against the misuse of healthcare products and medical personnel in executions. And beyond the healthcare industry, major chemical corporations have also banned the use of their nitrogen gas in executions. 

Connecticut-based Corporations with Ties to the Death Penalty

In 2024, a feature by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver revealed that Hamden-based Absolute Standards was the source of lethal injection drugs used in 13 federal executions under the Trump administration in 2020 and 2021. It has also been confirmed that Absolute Standards sold drugs to states with the death penalty like Arizona. While the corporation has since committed to no longer supplying lethal injection drugs, what it previously sold remains on federal and state shelves. Those drugs are now likely expired, but there are concerns they may still be used. 

In 2024, Windsor-based Walter Surface Technologies was exposed for its connection to death penalty executions. Its subsidiary, Allegro Technologies, manufactured the gas masks being used by Alabama to execute the death penalty through nitrogen suffocation. Three people have been executed using this method pioneered by the state.