The Connecticut Supreme Court has rejected a request by state prosecutors to reconsider its landmark decision that eliminated the death penalty.
Justices turned down the request Thursday.
A bitterly divided court ruled four to three in August that the death penalty violates the state constitution and no longer meets society's evolving standards of decency.
Justices ruled that a 2012 state law abolishing capital punishment for future crimes must be applied to the eleven men on death row for killings committed before the law took effect.
The decision came in the appeal of Eduardo Santiago, who had faced the possibility of lethal injection for a 2000 murder-for-hire in West Hartford.
Prosecutors wanted to reargue the case, saying the court's majority unfairly considered issues never raised by Santiago's lawyers.
