The state Supreme Court threw out a man’s 60-year prison sentence handed down in 1997 because the sentencing judge said he was a “charter member” of the “superpredator” group, a debunked theory from the 1990s that warned thousands of young Black men with no regard for human life would soon prowl the streets committing violent crimes. Keith Belcher, now 43, will be resentenced by a lower court for crimes he committed when he was a child. “In summary, by invoking the superpredator theory to sentence the young, Black male defendant in the present case, the sentencing court, perhaps even without ..read more

“The very worst thing that anybody can do in this world, I did,” said Demetrius Miller, who was 21 years old when he committed felony murder. He kept notes in front of him reminding him to remain calm, breathe and be honest with the parole board. Acknowledging an increased understanding in the science of brain development, the Board of Pardons and Paroles has commuted the sentences of 11 men who committed crimes when they were 25 or younger. Every man was serving a sentence for murder, felony murder or attempted murder. Each has been incarcerated for their entire adult lives. Many ..read more

Yehyun Kim :: CT Mirror Chief State’s Attorney Richard J. Colangelo Jr., at a news conference in July. The commission with the power to hire and fire top prosecutors in Connecticut is awaiting completion of an independent investigation of how Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. came to hire the daughter of a top state budget official while he lobbied the budget office for raises. Justice Andrew J. McDonald, the chair of the Criminal Justice Commission, said in an interview that no action will be taken until former U.S. Attorney Stanley A. Twardy Jr. reports the findings of his inqu ..read more

Yehyun Kim :: ctmirror.org MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, the largest correctional facility in New England. After a year and a half of the pandemic working its way through the state’s prisons and jails, COVID-19 had slowed down in the corrections system by the beginning of September. Fewer prisoners were being sent to the medical isolation unit at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, infection rates among the incarcerated population were falling and no one had died since Jan. 25. As fall transitioned to winter, four incarcerated people died from the virus. In ..read more

Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire Two years after opening an investigation into the conditions of confinement at Manson Youth Institution, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that there is “reasonable cause” to believe that the Cheshire youth prison’s isolation practices and “inadequate mental health services” put children incarcerated there at risk of serious harm. “Children in adult correctional facilities do not forfeit their constitutional and federal rights,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statemen ..read more

Cloe Poisson :: CTMirror.org A group of protestors marched in New Haven in June, 2020 to show their solidarity in fighting for racial injustice. The protest followed the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. Connecticut is attempting to collect more detailed information about how often police officers in the state are tackling, tasing, restraining and aiming weapons at members of the public in order to gain a better understanding of current law enforcement practices. State officials have required police departments throughout Connecticut to report use-of ..read more

Will Lamprecht's Facebook page William Lamprecht was struggling to beat both a drug and alcohol addition and cancer when he pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. William Lamprecht stood before the judge in a Torrington courtroom in September fearing the four months he was about to spend in prison would become a death sentence. The 62-year-old man, who had been battling an alcohol and drug addiction for years, was awaiting his fate after pleading guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in New Milford last year. But cocaine and vodka weren’t the only things destroying his bo ..read more

CT-N Michael Cox participates in his commutation hearing from MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution on Nov. 19. The Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Michael Cox compassionate parole Wednesday morning, creating a path to release for the first person granted a commutation in two years. “We are very grateful that the parole board has at long last done the right thing and given Mr. Cox the opportunity to recover and improve his health, for the first time in 30 years, back at home,” said Alex Taubes, Cox’s attorney. Cox has spent three decades in prison for a string of violent crimes he ..read more

Cloe Poisson :: CTMirror.org Prison medical staff are not required to obtain an exemption if they choose not be vaccinated against COVID-19 and are instead allowed to test weekly while they continue working. Above, syringes filled with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. More than 600 employees at the Department of Correction may opt to test weekly in lieu of being vaccinated against COVID-19, a CT Mirror analysis has found, because the state is not requiring prison medical staff to apply for medical or religious exemptions. That policy is inconsistent with rules for the majority of health care w ..read more

Courtesy Debra Geske Debra Geske of Glastonbury was raped in 2000 while serving in the Navy. She hopes that having independent prosecutors will increase reporting of military sexual trauma. Debra Geske, a Navy technician, was enjoying cranberry juice at a bar in Guam when a male sailor spiked it with a drug when she wasn’t looking. He and two other sailors drove her home and raped her. “I woke up the next morning full of blood,” she said. When Geske reported the rape to her petty officer in 2000, he said he couldn’t respond until higher-ups arrived on a Navy ship four weeks later. Then, off ..read more