Republican legislators grilled Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s top legal advisers for hours Monday during a public hearing on an administration proposal that sets the safety of domestic violence victims against the rights of gun owners.
Justice
Stories about the justice system in Connecticut: Law enforcement, courts, prisons and offenders, immigration, juvenile justice, and public corruption.
Posted inJustice
House lawyer named as claims commissioner
Christy Scott of West Hartford, a lawyer employed by the House Democratic majority, was named Friday by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to the $135,000-a-year post of state claims commissioner, a legal backwater that became controversial in recent months.
Posted inJustice, Politics
Schaghticoke hire Lieberman to help sue state over casino law
The Schaghicoke Tribal Nation has hired former Sen. Joe Lieberman – who once fought against the tribe’s efforts to win federal recognition — to help them sue the state over a gambling law that allows only the state’s two gaming tribes to open a new casino. In their legal challenge, the Schaghticokes’ have joined forces with MGM, which has also been blocked from building a casino in Connecticut.
Posted inJustice, Politics
NRA fighting proposed change to CT law on carrying guns
The National Rifle Association has taken aim at a proposed changes to Connecticut’s gun laws that would make it easier for law enforcement officials to ask to see the permits of those carrying guns in public.
Posted inJustice
A lesson on crime, redemption and trees at Yale
It’s all a bit movie-of-the-weekish, mixing ex-cons, the Ivy League, and a goal of reforesting a city famously hit hard by Dutch elm disease. But it’s been working for a half dozen years now, boasting a high survival rate for the trees and low recidivism for the guys.
Posted inEducation, Justice, Money, Politics
Judiciary says proposed cuts ‘compromise access to justice’
Cutting $64 million from the previously approved funding for the Judicial Branch next fiscal year would result in hundreds of layoffs and force closure of multiple courthouses and a juvenile detention facility, Judge Patrick L. Carroll III, chief court administrator, told the legislature’s Appropriations Committee.
Posted inJustice
Claims commissioner resigns amid controversy
J. Paul Vance Jr., the claims commissioner under fire for awarding $16.8 million to compensate four member members of a New Haven gang whose murder convictions were set aside, submitted a resignation letter last week, the governor’s office said Friday.
Posted inJustice
A new approach to prepping women to leave prison
EAST LYME — Until three weeks ago, 90 percent of Amy Gully’s daily routine in York Correctional, the state’s only prison for women, was staying in a cell, marking days off a 30-month sentence for embezzlement and waiting her turn to make a phone call home. She told Gov. Dannel P. Malloy that her new routine is dawn-to-dusk activity aimed at preparing her to go home.
Posted inJustice
State to pay innocent man $6M for 20 years in prison
Miguel Roman, who served 20 years, six months and 10 days in prison for a murder the state concedes he did not commit, was awarded $6 million Monday by the state claims commissioner. DNA evidence exonerated him in 2008 and convicted another man in 2011.
Posted inHealth, Justice
Malloy, state health officials sued over Ebola quarantine policy
People quarantined in Connecticut during the height of the 2014 ebola crisis sued Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and state health officials on Monday, saying the quarantine policy the governor imposed is unconstitutional.
Posted inJustice
Questions about a $16.8 million award — and the meaning of innocence
State Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance Jr. and his role as the sole authority over how Connecticut reimburses the wrongly incarcerated faces questions at the State Capitol after his award of $16.8 million last month to four former members of a New Haven street gang, the Island Brothers. Are the standards clear? And should his awards be subject to review?
Posted inEducation, Justice
For CCSU professor with multiple convictions, a $60K settlement and resignation
The state’s largest public college system has paid a professor with multiple criminal convictions $60,409 in exchange for his resignation and dismissal of all pending legal complaints against the Board of Regents.
Posted inJustice, Politics
Malloy dubs bail, sentencing reforms as ‘Second Chance 2.0’
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy came to the Citadel of Love, a black church in the North End of Hartford, on Thursday to roll out “Second Chance 2.0,” a second round of proposals to negate the permanence of criminal mistakes, especially those committed by the young. He will ask the legislature next week to curtail bail for minor crimes, treat many defendants younger than 21 as juveniles and broaden the reach of a record-expunging youthful offender law.
Posted inEducation, Justice
Closing CT’s juvenile jail: Opportunities and obstacles ahead
With Connecticut’s controversial jail for young offenders slated to close within two-and-a-half years, state leaders have begun to contemplate what an alternative juvenile justice system should encompass.
Posted inJustice, Politics
A governor, a commissioner and a new take on prison
Dannel P. Malloy is a socially progressive Democratic governor trying to make prison a place for second chances. Scott Semple is a Republican who came of age as a correction official when the primary mission of U.S. prisons was to punish. Together, they are trying to remake criminal justice in Connecticut.