First Time On Death Row
Taborsky is an anomaly in Connecticut death penalty lore. He is the only convict sent to death row not once, but twice, for different crimes. Taborsky first came to Connecticut's death row for the 1950 murder of Louis Wolfson, a West Hartford liquor store owner, during a robbery. His younger brother Albert, who was also his co-conspirator, testified against Taborsky at the trial in exchange for a life sentence. In prison, however, Albert exhibited signs of mental illness and was institutionalized. Joseph Taborsky, having learned through the prison grapevine that his brother Albert wound up in an insane asylum, appealed his case. In 1955, the Connecticut Supreme Court reversed Taborsky's conviction (and death sentence) because the sole witness against him - Albert - was incurably insane. Because there were no other witnesses to the robbery and murder of Wolfson, Taborsky could not be tried again. Thus, he was freed from death row, after less than three years, in early October 1955. Taborsky appeared appropriately humble, stating, "You can't beat the law. From now on, I'm not even going to get a parking ticket."
Read more about this topic: Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky
Famous quotes containing the words time, death and/or row:
“A two-year-old can be taught to curb his aggressions completely if the parents employ strong enough methods, but the achievement of such control at an early age may be bought at a price which few parents today would be willing to pay. The slow education for control demands much more parental time and patience at the beginning, but the child who learns control in this way will be the child who acquires healthy self-discipline later.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“Beauty is a precious trace that eternity causes to appear to us and that it takes away from us. A manifestation of eternity, and a sign of death as well.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“And, indeed, is there not something holy about a great kitchen?... The scoured gleam of row upon row of metal vessels dangling from hooks or reposing on their shelves till needed with the air of so many chalices waiting for the celebration of the sacrament of food. And the range like an altar, yes, before which my mother bowed in perpetual homage, a fringe of sweat upon her upper lip and the fire glowing in her cheeks.”
—Angela Carter (19401992)