Purely as a practical matter, the distinction was
dramatically illustrated when Frankie Resto, released from prison early after
having received credits under the General Assembly’s new Risk Reduction Earned
Credits program, entered an EZ Mart store in Meriden and shot to death co-owner
of the store Ibrahim Ghazal, who handed over the money he demanded to Mr. Resto
before he was shot, according to police reports.
Other reports demonstrate that Mr. Resto should not have
been a candidate for early release under a flawed program that awards credits
to violent criminals. The bill establishing the program was rushed through the
legislature during its final hectic days, without the benefit of public
hearings and over the voluble objections of Republicans in both chambers.
The chief objection of Republicans as the bill was pushed
through the sausage machine during a session that in the past had been utilized
to finalize budgets was that the Risk Reduction Earned Credits program could
endanger the public welfare because it provided early release to certain
violent criminals in prison for having committed such felonies as: the violation of a protective order; carrying a
dangerous weapon; attempted arson, a 3rd Degree felony; burglary, a 3rd Degree felony;
molestation of children and rape.
Enter Mr. Resto.
A series of reports
in the Meriden Record Journal, the newspaper of record in the town in which Mr.
Resto murdered Mr. Ghazal, provides according to arrest records several snapshots
of the newly released Mr. Resto energetically being himself.
Mr. Resto, nom de
guerre “Razor,” was the intended target of a 2006 fatal stabbing,
apparently of a drug deal gone wrong. Public records detailing crimes such as
these are available to anyone with a computer and a mouse, not excluding those responsible
for handing out early release credits under the state’s hastily passed Risk
Reduction Earned Credits program. The information – can anyone believe it? --is readily
available even to an undersecretary for criminal justice policy at the Office
of Policy and Management such as Mr. Lawlor.
However, in recent
days the governor’s office has been concerned with the messenger of bad news
rather than the predictable consequences of the seriously flawed Risk Reduction
Earned Credits program passed by the General Assembly approved by both Mr. Malloy
and Mr. Lawlor.
That would be state
Senator Len Suzio, who lives in Meriden four streets away from the scene of Mr.
Resto’s mayhem.
In reported
interviews with several media outlets, Mr. Lawlor has charged that Mr. Suzio
has involved himself with family members of the murdered Mr. Ghazal not because
the family members – and everyone else in the state -- need his assistance in
repairing Gibraltar sized breeches in the new legislation but because Mr. Suzio
is a political opportunist, playing fast and loose with emotions rubbed raw by
a convicted criminal known for shaking down drug dealers who murdered their
father and who was given get-out-of-jail early credits under Mr. Lawlor’s
misconceived program.
This guy Suzio, Mr.
Lawlor insisted, is a hypocrite… because…
Because Mr. Suzio,
WHO FAVORS MR. LAWLOR’S RISK REDUCTION PROGRAM ONLY FOR NON-VIOLENT CRIMINALS,
wrote a letter recommending early release under the
program for a non-violent criminal convicted of embezzlement. In the course of
his letter, Mr. Suzio pointedly made the proper distinction between violent and
non-violent criminals: “With the new early release legislation, people who are
incarcerated for much more severe crimes such as rape and assault will be able
to get an early release for good behavior. I believe it makes more sense for
the residents of Connecticut to have non-violent prisoners released early
verses those with a violent record.”
Mr. Lawlor has, even now, pointedly ignored the all
important distinction. This failure to discriminate between violent and non-violent
applicants to the program is at the root of its failure. And Mr. Lawlor in
making this point – with considerable help from the architects of the failed Risk
Reduction Earned Credits program – is by no means alone.
Andrew Roraback, recently endorsed by the Hartford Courant
as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in the 5th District, responded to
the preventable murder in Meriden when asked about it by Al Terzi and Laurie
Perez on Fox News’ The Real Story (Pertinent remarks at 5:45):
“I objected to this
program when it was passed in May of 2011 in the dark of night by a Democratic
legislature without the benefit of a public hearing and over the objections of
the Commissioner of Corrections who said we should only do an early release
program for non-violent offenders. What the governor and the Democrats pushed
through to save money at the expense of public safety was an early release
program which allowed serial rapists, child molesters, repeat drunk drivers who
have killed innocent people to be given good time credit retroactively for five
years. And I think everyone knew it was just a matter of time before one of
these people who was released before they were supposed to be released did
something terrible. And my heart goes out to the family in Meriden who are
suffering the consequences of the irresponsible actions taken in the
legislation. And I hope that next year, the legislature will see fit to repeal
this bill and make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
And even Mr. Suzio’s Democratic opponent in the upcoming
13th District race has made the same point: “It’s important that we keep our
hardened criminals behind bars, and that we also at the same time recognize
that non-violent criminals who do have the opportunity for rehabilitation have
that through this program.”
So then, in what sense are Mr. Lawlor’s spurious charges against Mr. Suzio not a)
political or b) hypocritical?
And whose risks are reduced by allowing violent incarcerated
criminals access to a program that should be utilized only by non-violent
criminals?
Mr. Malloy, once a prosecutor and a courageous Irishman who
fearlessly leaps into controversies in
which even angels fear to tread, has so far maintained a discreet
distance concerning the pain felt by Mr. Ghazal’s family.
When Mr. Ghazal’s
son Fapyo first laid eyes on Mr. Resto at an arraignment in Meriden Superior
Court on July 13, he said, “He is a bad guy. He is like a monster. I cannot
look into his face,” and of Suzio the hypocrite Fapyo said, “What he tries to
do is very good. We will try to work together and change the law.”
When reporters
questioned Fapyo at a petition signing at the site of his father’s murder a few
days ago, they supposed he spoke haltingly because he was unfamiliar with the
American tongue. His real trouble was that he was beaten so savagely while
working at another convenience store that the beating left him scared in body
and mind.
Still he managed to
tell me this story: In Jordan, his father always had spoken in glowing terms of
America, so that his dreams colored their own hopes and imaginings.
“We all wanted to
come to America, work hard. And now look?”
In “America, America”
a book and later a film by Eliza Kazan about his Uncle’s journey to America
from Anatolia, the central character speaks for all immigrants when he says, “America
is not even a country. It is an emotive idea.”
When Mr. Ghazal’s family was discussing funeral arrangements following his murder, some assumed the patriarch of the family wished to be buried in Jordan. Fapyo interposed and said “No. Dad told me he loved America and he wanted to be buried in America, his new home."
And that is why when
a reporter asked Fapyo to step before the mics and answer a few questions, not
fifty feet from where his father was fatally shot, among the last words he
shared with the reporters were “God bless America."
There are only 6
crimes excluded from the unreconstructed Risk Reduction Earned Credits program, capital murder among them.
Sentences for rape, arson, sex with a child under 13, poisoning the water
supply as a terrorist act and others are subject to reductions. Mr. Lawlor, it
would appear, is lost to any appeals of the heart. But the family whose father was murdered may have better luck appealing to Mr. Malloy’s wife Kathy, who ran a rape crisis center.
Comments
Lawlor is committed to the program. He'll just demagogue his critics. The media will support all this nonsense until there are a sufficient number of rapes, arsons, murders, etc. The Courant already has said one is not enough. I’ll have more on it as it goes along.