(The Center Square) — Connecticut lawmakers are considering a proposal to exert more control over a state board that signs off on pardons and commutations, but Republicans and victims say the Democratic-led plan would allow dangerous criminals to get out of jail.
The proposal, approved by the House of Representatives last week, would give the state Legislature more authority to appoint the chairperson of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, the group which handles requests for executive clemency. Under current law, the panel’s chairperson is appointed by the governor.
Last year, the parole board commuted more than 70 prison sentences — about 16% of the requests it received — at least 44 of which were convicted murderers, according to state data.
That drew condemnation from victims and Republican lawmakers, who demanded changes to the law to give them more control over the executive clemency process.
In response, Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont removed the board’s chairperson, Carleton Giles, and tapped a new chairperson who put the commutation process on hold. The new chair, Jennifer Medina Zaccagnini, made a series of recommendations to update the commutation laws in the proposed legislation.
But Republicans say a last-minute update to the bill approved by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would “trample” on the right of victims to be heard in the process.
Those changes include not notifying victims’ families when a convict applies for a commutation or allowing family members to be present at a commutation hearing without permission.
GOP leaders call on the Legislature to strip those provisions from the bill before it comes up for a vote in the Senate or nix the proposal entirely.
“The purpose of the pause in commutations was to give victims and their families a voice in the process, a constitutionally protected voice,” Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, said in a statement. “This is not only the legally correct approach but also one that provides the victim’s survivors with human dignity.”
Sen. Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Democratic lawmakers’ changes to the bill “ignore” the recommendations of the new chairperson and will lead to “even more unjustified commutations for violent criminals.”
“We need to be focused more on the victims and their families,” Harding said in a statement. “Their voices must be heard.”
In 2021, the parole board adopted an updated commutations policy after a two-year pause, allowing inmates previously ineligible for parole a path out of incarceration.
But criminal justice reform activists criticized the long pause in commutations and called on Lamont to take action to restart the review process.
The proposed changes to the commutation laws, which would also ease the criteria for medical parole, are also opposed by the state Victims Advocate’s Office, which points out that reforms in recent years have given criminal defendants more opportunities for early release, reduced sentences, relief from supervision and erasure of criminal records.
“Community and victim safety should be paramount in release decisions,” Natasha Pierre wrote in recent testimony opposing the bill. “Lowering the standard of risk of danger is not consistent with community and victim safety.”
