Feb 14, 2025 Story by: Publisher
Gov. Ned Lamont‘s administration has failed to comply with a state law—one that he originally proposed—designed to promote fairness and transparency in Connecticut’s criminal justice system. The law, passed unanimously in 2019, mandates the Office of Policy and Management (OPM) to collect and analyze data annually from various criminal justice agencies to assess whether defendants are treated differently based on race, ethnicity, or hometown.
The decision also comes as almost half of the state’s top prosecutors’ eight-year terms are due to soon expire and could face reappointment in the coming months. This pause meant the panel tasked with deciding whether to reappoint each state’s attorney for another eight-year term wouldn’t have this data surrounding prosecutors’ performance to help evaluate them.
While the Judicial Branch has been complying with the law and turning over their data surrounding court operations to OPM each year since 2019 for the governor’s policy office to include in their annual ”Analysis of Prosecutor Data” reports, the report that was due last July would have been the first time the prosecutor’s office turned over any of their data surrounding decisions made by their attorneys.
Despite this legal requirement, Lamont’s administration did not adhere to the law over the past year. In April 2023, Kara A.T. Murphy, an attorney at OPM, informed officials at the Connecticut Office of the Chief State’s Attorney and the Judicial Branch that data collection for the annual report would be halted.
“OPM will be pausing all work on the 2024 Prosecutor Data Report,” Murphy stated in an email to the prosecutor’s office, as revealed by records obtained by CT Insider through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“An Act Increasing Fairness and Transparency in the Criminal Justice System” – was approved unanimously by the legislature. It requires OPM to collect and analyze prosecutor and court data each year.
The case-level court data includes information about criminal cases surrounding: the type of arrest; continuances; applications for and completions of diversionary programs; cases pending trial each month; and court fees and fines. The prosecutor data includes: what plea agreements were offered and details of the agreement reached; the reason charges were dropped; and whether victims and the prosecutor were in contact.
The intent of the law: Use data to evaluate the criminal justice system.
People of color in Connecticut are far more likely to be incarcerated or entangled in the state’s criminal justice system than white people. But are Black and Latino residents being treated more harshly than white defendants by the criminal justice system when they are arrested for the same offenses. Requests for that data to be made public so it can be independently evaluated have been rejected by the Lamont Administration
The decision to suspend data collection raises concerns about transparency in prosecutor decision-making and court operations, which the law was meant to address. Advocacy groups and lawmakers may push for answers on why the administration chose not to comply with the reporting requirement.
Source: CT Insider
