Public Defense

These bills made it! (Proposed legislation)

By Gideon

As I mentioned in my last post on bills that died, there was mix of good and bad among the bills that passed through the judiciary committee and have a chance of making it into our statute books. Leave it to me, your trusty intrepid CT legal reporter, to tell you which bills are good and bad.

Bills I’d like to see pass:

• An act concerning disease prevention in the correctional system
• An act concerning Larceny (increases the monetary thresholds for larcenies)
• The prospective death penalty abolition bill
• An act changing the distance from schools/public housing projects, etc within which drugs sellers are subject to additional penalties. The change is from 1500 feet to 200 feet!
• An act requiring the Risk Assessment Board to determine what, if any, provisions of the AWA to adopt and to determine a risk assessment procedure.
• An act establishing a permanent sentencing commission.
• An act making the possession of 1 oz or less of marijuana an infraction.
• An act eliminating the requirement that defendants need a prosecutor’s permission before seeking a sentence modification.
• An act concerning the attorney occupational tax (exemption state employees from paying the tax)

Bills that really shouldn’t pass:

• An act increasing the penalty for engaging an officer in pursuit
• An act making the failure to report a crime an A misdemeanor punishable by 1 year in prison.
• An act extending collection of DNA to people convicted of misdemeanors.

I think that’s it! Did I miss anything? Did I miss your favorite bill? Let me know in the comments.

Full post as published by A Public Defender on April 10, 2009 (boomark / email).