HJ 34, a Resolution Concerning Certain Witchcraft Convictions in Colonial Connecticut

Connecticut held 43 witchcraft trials, resulting in the execution of sixteen innocent people in the mid-1600s. Many of the people targeted as witches were poor, women, and often single mothers. House Joint Resolution 34 touches on many issues that the ACLU-CT deeply believes in, primarily gender justice, and ending harsh criminal legal policies that result in mass incarceration. If passed, this resolution would be a meaningful symbolic way for the state to acknowledge the grave harms it facilitated by slandering and executing women and men. There are, many generations later, residents who are the descendants of both the victims and perpetrators of the witchcraft trials, who deserve closure.