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Ullmann and several other members suggested the task force may be missing a chance to make long-term changes in the justice system.

Others said the group will continue to discuss issues such as mandatory minimum drug sentences and racial disparity in sentencing even as it deals with parole system gaps exposed by the Cheshire case.

"We have to show the public we understand that we must reduce the chances that something like Cheshire could happen again," said Robert Farr, task force chairman and head of the state's Board of Pardon and Paroles. "We can do that and still make other changes."

The group began meeting in May, two months before two parolees broke into a Cheshire home and killed a woman and her two daughters.

The task force started by having members answer questions about what sentence they would give a defendant in different scenarios.

The results surprised some members. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and academics gave similar answers. Farr called it "a magical moment in Connecticut's criminal justice history."

The task force divided into four subcommittees that would discuss alternatives to incarceration, sentencing structure, the racial imbalance in prisons and how to classify some drug offenses and other crimes that carry a broad range of possible sentences.

Then, on July 23, two burglars on parole, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, allegedly killed Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11.

Legislators called for a review of the parole system, and it has since been learned that the parole board did not have access to sentencing transcripts and other documents when it released Komisarjevsky and Hayes.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell created her own task force to investigate the parole system. Last week, she banned parole for all violent offenders.

The sentencing task force changed its focus at the same time. It studied tougher burglary laws and looked at the impact a tougher "three strikes and you're out" law would have on prison overcrowding.

"It's almost like members are bending over backward to join the throng of punitive measures," said Jon Schoenhorn, a task force member and president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "It violates the entire purpose of why this task force was created."

Other members said they noticed the shift.

"Prison overcrowding and alternatives to incarceration were getting more attention before," Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane said. "Since Cheshire, obviously the need to protect the public has been brought to the forefront."

Some members say the task force should lend its voice to the Cheshire debate so the state does not make any rash changes.

"I think it's incumbent upon us to respond," said Andrew Clark, a group member and the administrator of the Institute for the Study of Crime & Justice at Central Connecticut State University. "We have to ask tough questions and come up with real solutions."

Clark and other members said the task force could return to other issues in the future.

"I think it's too early to draw any conclusions about the impact of the Cheshire event," said David Shepack, state's attorney for the Litchfield Judicial District. "Obviously, it's been a topic of conversation, but I don't think one can turn around and say it has changed the work of the task force or what the ultimate results will be."

A case such as Cheshire can make policy-makers "a little less willing to think outside the box," said Barbara Tombs, a senior fellow at the New York City-based Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit agency that researches criminal justice issues.

Tombs has been advising the task force and says it could suggest major changes and deal with fallout from the Cheshire case.

"With something so high profile, you have to shift priorities," Tombs said. "But that doesn't mean the whole issue of reform takes a secondary seat."

http://www.norwalkadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-nor.sentencing3sep30,0,7301
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