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WINSTED - Six months to the day after a grisly triple homicide in Cheshire rocked Connecticut residents, the state Legislature overwhelmingly passed criminal justice reforms early Wednesday morning, strengthening the state’s parole system and designating of a new "home invasion" offense.
Last July 23, 44-year-old Stephen Hayes of Winsted and 27-year-old Joshua Komisarjevsky of Cheshire — both parolees from prison — were arrested for reportedly breaking into the home of Dr. William Petit Jr. The men allegedly beat and tied up Petit before killing his wife and two daughters and setting fire to their home.
In response to the violent murders, Gov. M. Jodi Rell and numerous legislators immediately pushed for a tougher stance on home invasions and the state’s parole system.
Included in the resulting legislation is a new statute that would classify home invasion as a Class A felony, guaranteeing a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of 25 years. Home invasion would also be considered a violent crime, meaning those convicted would be required to serve 85 percent of their sentences.
Though the bill passed by a vote of 36-0 in the Senate and 126-12 in the House, there was some disagreement over the language of the proposal, including a suggested "three strikes" law, which failed to pass.
"The bill made some important improvements to the law but it also fell short, in my opinion," said state Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30). "It’s confusing because the three strikes proposal we had in front of us applied to conviction for a third serious violent felony — rape, murder, arson or home invasion. You would have to go to prison for 30 years, minimum."
Roraback said legislators opposed to three strikes legislation pointed to California as an example of the ineffectiveness of the law, which has overburdened that state’s criminal justice system.
"People say California has a bad law, but this was not California," Roraback said, noting that the Connecticut three strikes proposal would have applied to violent crimes only. "California is if you steal an apple, or if you have a marijuana seed on the floor of your car — that’s not what we were debating. We were saying, ‘How many serious violent felonies do you have to commit before protection of the public trumps you getting another chance?’"
Despite the failure of of the three strikes proposal to pass the Legislature, Rell said Wednesday that she was pleased with the overall bill. "Violent criminals have no place in our state, except inside a prison cell," the governor said in a statement. "A tough home invasion law is the linchpin of our real reform. Our reforms will make our state safer, with new laws and tougher penalties that will get criminals off the streets and behind bars."
Last July’s Cheshire slayings came at a time when a state sentencing task force had already been working to develop suggested reforms to the criminal justice system, including changing mandatory minimum drug sentences and tackling racial disparity in sentencing. Members of the task force said last fall that the Cheshire crimes shifted the focus of the group from leniency to tougher sentencing. Rell created her own task force to investigate the parole system and banned parole for all violent offenders.
"In my opinion we need to be more discriminating in terms of people we incarcerate," Roraback said. "It ought to be people who’ve commited violent crimes and people who pose a threat to the public." The senator said the focus on violent offenders offers legislators a chance to take another look at sentencing for nonviolent crimes. "We could probably look closely at handling that population in a less secure way with a great focus on treatment," he said.
The new criminal justice legislation calls for new full-time positions on the state parole board and improvements to the criminal justice systems computer network. Global positioning system tracking of criminals on parole would be enhanced and the state would hire 10 new parole officers to handle the caseload. An automated system would notify victims of court hearings and make it easier for state agencies to share information.
Additional measures are expected to come up for debate when the regular session of the state Legislature begins Feb. 6.
"These changes are just the beginning of a much-needed, top-to-bottom reform of our entire criminal justice system," Rell said. "With this legislation we are making great strides toward improving the parole system, strengthening the laws on home invasion and burglary and cracking down on repeat offenders. More will need to be done, and we will be taking up those challenges in the regular session that begins just two weeks from now."
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.