Today in 1968, the Connecticut General Assembly voted in favor of consolidating the state’s prisons into a single organization, creating the State Department of Corrections. Previously, every prison in the state had been independently managed, with its own Board of Directors, administrative staff, and policies for inmate behavior and rehabilitation. This sweeping reform of…
Tag: criminal law
December 22: Newgate Prison Receives — and Quickly Loses — Its First Inmate
Today in 1773, Newgate Prison, the first penal institution to open in Connecticut, received its very first prisoner: 20-year-old John Hinson, who had been convicted of burglary and sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. Newgate Prison was built on the site of a former copper mine in East Granby which had opened in 1705…
December 18: Connecticut’s 20th Century “Demonic Possession” Murder Trial
Today in 1981, the sentencing of Arne Cheyenne Johnson in a Danbury courtroom marked the end of one of the most bizarre court cases in Connecticut history. For the first and only time in U.S. history, a defendant on trial for murder argued that he could not be held responsible for his actions because…
August 2: The Last Public Hanging in Connecticut
In 2012, Connecticut became the 17th state to outlaw the death penalty. For the first 200 years of Connecticut’s recorded history, however, public executions were viewed as an effective deterrent for serious crimes and were often major community events, attracting hundreds if not thousands of onlookers to watch the morbid spectacle. Speeches and moralizing…