Mike Lawlor
Encyclopedia
Michael P. Lawlor is an American politician
, criminal justice
professor
, and lawyer
from Connecticut
. A Democrat
, he served as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives
from 1987 to 2011, representing the 99th district in East Haven
. Lawlor resigned from the legislature on January 4, 2011 to serve in Dan Malloy
's administration as undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning at the Office of Policy and Management.
. He was co-captain of the EHHS football team and was Vice-President of the Senior Class.
He graduated as an Honors Scholar in Slavic and Eastern European Studies from the University of Connecticut
in 1979. He earned a Master's Degree in Soviet Area Studies from the University of London
in 1981 and he graduated from the George Washington University School of Law in 1983. He has also participated in language studies in Russia in 1977 and received a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship to study economic reform in Hungary in 1982.
for the State's Attorney
Office in New Haven, where he served until his election to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1986.
He is currently a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven's
Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, and is also a Visiting Lecturer in Law at the Yale Law School
.
In March 2009 Lawlor and Sen. Andrew J. McDonald
proposed a new state law proposing to regulate the management of Roman Catholic churches in Connecticut; free speech advocates, church leaders, and members of the Republican House opposition charged the bill violated the separation of church and state
clause in the First Amendment
. Bill Donahue, President of the Catholic League
, an organization which fights anti-Catholic prejudice, called it a "brutal act of revenge by Lawlor and McDonald, two champions of gay marriage... designed to muzzle the voice of the Catholic Church".
He was one of ten members of the legislature's Select Committee of Inquiry, which considered the possible impeachment of former Governor John G. Rowland
. Rowland resigned on June 21, 2004 following the committee's hearings.
As co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lawlor played a key role in two amendments to the State of Connecticut constitution. The first established rights for victims of crime, the second eliminated the patronage-ridden county sheriff system.
He has also been a leader in efforts to enact workable gun control laws, to address racial disparities in the state's criminal justice system, to pass laws ending discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, to rewrite Connecticut's domestic violence laws, to reform the juvenile justice system, and to address prison overcrowding.
During the 2005 session of the legislature, Lawlor was one of the leaders in enacting Connecticut's civil unions law, which provided full state legal recognition to same sex couples who wish to be treated as married couples under the state's law. Connecticut was the first state to enact a civil union or same sex marriage law without a court order to do so.
Lawlor is a chair of the Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project, an associate with the State Sentencing and Corrections Program at the Vera Institute of Justice
in New York City, and a member of the National Resource Committee for the Center for Sex Offender Management within the United States Department of Justice
. He is a member of the American Bar Association's
Coalition for Justice, a national effort to build trust and confidence in the justice system.
In the late 1990s Connecticut addressed its prison overcrowding issues by transferring inmates to prisons in Virginia
. Rep. Lawlor strongly opposed this effort. In 2000 he told The Hartford Courant
"this policy is more trouble than it's worth," and that he wanted to "bring them back as soon as possible." In 2003 the New York Times reported Lawlor favored replacing the Virginia facilities with "alternative ways of combating overcrowding, like making it harder to put people back in prison for technical violations of their parole, and argued that transfers should be a last resort."
Lawlor has long advocated what was called in 2004 a "controversial bill" which focused on the increased release of prisoners instead of expanding correctional facilities to handle the increased number of offenders entering the system. Thanks to Lawlor's vocal advocacy the bill was co-sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, passed unanimously in the State Senate, and only 9 out of 151 representatives in the House voted against it. The bill was then signed into law by Gov. John Rowland, who was under federal investigation at the time. Lawlor's rationale was "The key is to resist doing the simple thing - dumping a bunch of money into a new prison," The response, to expand the number of inmates paroled, became controversial following the July 2007 home invasion
murders of the Petit family
in Cheshire, Connecticut
by two paroled convicts. On August 26, 2007 he defended the state's policy on paroles in a Hartford Courant article "Some people say let's put them all in jail. OK, fine, but that means dramatically increasing taxes or shutting down a bunch of colleges." Due to the public outcry since the Petit murders, Lawlor agreed to hold hearings on Connecticut's parole system and called on state officials to investigate sites to build new prisons. "We are expected to receive information about the costs of these models and possible sites for new prison facilities," he said. State officials and national criminal justice experts testified at the September 11 hearing, with Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane labeling the existing data system for criminal justice "nonexistent." Lawlor criticized the agencies for not having a system of communications among each other. A hearing open to the public was held on November 27, 2007.
Governor M. Jodi Rell
announced on September 21, 2007 that there would be a moratorium on further parole of violent offenders. This occurred after a parolee with two prior kidnapping convictions carjacked a vehicle in Hartford and was later shot in a confrontation with New York City police. Lawlor supported her decision for a moratorium on parole and acknowledged this would require prompt efforts to expand prison space. He urged Governor Rell to explore the state's options for either expanding existing prisons, building new prisons, or sending prisoners out of state. The governor in response refused to do so, saying that new additional prison space is not necessary and reiterated her opposition to sending prisoners out of state. Ironically, this placed Rell in the same position Lawlor had long held, as he had opposed sending Connecticut prisoners to Virginia prisons to ease overcrowding.
In testimony before the Judiciary Committee at an emergency meeting convened by Lawlor in October, Department of Corrections Commissioner Teresa Lantz concurred with Governor Rell, testifying that her department does not need nor is requesting additional staff or new prisons Lawlor announced that he disagrees with Rell and Lantz, saying that the state should look into building a new prison, adding beds to existing facilities, or hiring more staff. Nonetheless, on December 12, 2007 he was quoted by the Associated Press
as stating "Connecticut has a criminal justice system that already works pretty well."
A special session to enact tougher laws against home invasion
and tighten the parole
process was held January 22, 2008. A new law making home invasion a class A felony was passed, as well as reforming the parole board. Lawlor opposed efforts to pass a Three Strikes
law in Connecticut, which was not passed.
Governor Rell reiterated her call for a Three Strikes bill on March 31, 2008, following the kidnapping murder of an elderly New Britain
woman committed by a career criminal recently released from Connecticut prison.
He has served on the national drafting team for the Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision and the Interstate Compact for Juvenile Probation and Parole. Recently, he served as a consultant for the United States Department of Justice assisting in the establishment of an adult probation
system in Bulgaria
.
He was co-sponsor of Raised Bill 1098
, which, if passed, would have effectively gutted the traditional hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Connecticut. The Bill, by giving control over matters administrative and fiscal to a board of laity (in which the Bishop and Parish Priest would act only in an advisory capacity) and because it is specific only to the Roman Catholic Church is seen by many as anti-Catholic. The bill was tabled on March 10, 2009.
Politics of the United States
The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...
, criminal justice
Criminal justice
Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
, and lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
from Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. A Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, he served as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives
Connecticut House of Representatives
The Connecticut House of Representatives is the lower house in the Connecticut General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The house is composed of 151 members representing an equal number of districts, with each constituency containing nearly 22,600 residents...
from 1987 to 2011, representing the 99th district in East Haven
East Haven, Connecticut
East Haven is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 28,189. The town is just 3 minutes from downtown New Haven...
. Lawlor resigned from the legislature on January 4, 2011 to serve in Dan Malloy
Dan Malloy
Dannel Patrick "Dan" Malloy is the 88th and current Governor of Connecticut. He was the Mayor of Stamford, Connecticut from December 1995 until December 2009. Malloy had been endorsed by the Connecticut Democratic Party on May 22, 2010 over 2006 Democratic U.S...
's administration as undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning at the Office of Policy and Management.
Education
Lawlor attended public schools in East Haven and graduated from East Haven High SchoolEast Haven High School
East Haven High School is located at 35 Wheelbarrow Lane in East Haven, Connecticut. It is a co-educational public school serving grades nine through twelve. Its school colors are blue and gold and its mascot is the yellow jacket...
. He was co-captain of the EHHS football team and was Vice-President of the Senior Class.
He graduated as an Honors Scholar in Slavic and Eastern European Studies from the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...
in 1979. He earned a Master's Degree in Soviet Area Studies from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
in 1981 and he graduated from the George Washington University School of Law in 1983. He has also participated in language studies in Russia in 1977 and received a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship to study economic reform in Hungary in 1982.
Career
Following law school, Lawlor was appointed as a prosecutorProsecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
for the State's Attorney
State's Attorney
In the United States, the State's Attorney is, most commonly, an elected official who represents the State in criminal prosecutions and is often the chief law enforcement officer of their respective county, circuit...
Office in New Haven, where he served until his election to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1986.
He is currently a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven's
University of New Haven
The University of New Haven is a private university that combines a liberal arts education with professional training. The university comprises five colleges: the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business, the Tagliatela College of Engineering, the Henry C...
Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, and is also a Visiting Lecturer in Law at the Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
.
Politics
Lawlor was co-chairman of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee from 1995 to 2011. Prior to that, he was co-chairman of the Labor and Public Employees Committee where he played a major role in the reform of Connecticut's workers compensation program.In March 2009 Lawlor and Sen. Andrew J. McDonald
Andrew J. McDonald
Andrew J. McDonald is an American lawyer and politician from Connecticut. A Democrat, he served as a member of the Connecticut State Senate from 2003 to 2011, representing the state's 27th district in Stamford and Darien...
proposed a new state law proposing to regulate the management of Roman Catholic churches in Connecticut; free speech advocates, church leaders, and members of the Republican House opposition charged the bill violated the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
clause in the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. Bill Donahue, President of the Catholic League
Catholic League (U.S.)
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, often shortened to the Catholic League, is an American Catholic anti-defamation and civil rights organization...
, an organization which fights anti-Catholic prejudice, called it a "brutal act of revenge by Lawlor and McDonald, two champions of gay marriage... designed to muzzle the voice of the Catholic Church".
He was one of ten members of the legislature's Select Committee of Inquiry, which considered the possible impeachment of former Governor John G. Rowland
John G. Rowland
John Grosvenor Rowland was the 86th Governor of Connecticut from 1995 to 2004; he is a member of the Republican Party. He is married to Patty Rowland, his second wife, and the couple have five children between them...
. Rowland resigned on June 21, 2004 following the committee's hearings.
As co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lawlor played a key role in two amendments to the State of Connecticut constitution. The first established rights for victims of crime, the second eliminated the patronage-ridden county sheriff system.
He has also been a leader in efforts to enact workable gun control laws, to address racial disparities in the state's criminal justice system, to pass laws ending discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, to rewrite Connecticut's domestic violence laws, to reform the juvenile justice system, and to address prison overcrowding.
During the 2005 session of the legislature, Lawlor was one of the leaders in enacting Connecticut's civil unions law, which provided full state legal recognition to same sex couples who wish to be treated as married couples under the state's law. Connecticut was the first state to enact a civil union or same sex marriage law without a court order to do so.
Lawlor is a chair of the Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project, an associate with the State Sentencing and Corrections Program at the Vera Institute of Justice
Vera Institute of Justice
Founded in 1961, the Vera Institute of Justice is an independent nonprofit national research and policy organization. Based primarily out of New York City, Vera also has offices in Washington, DC, and New Orleans...
in New York City, and a member of the National Resource Committee for the Center for Sex Offender Management within the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
. He is a member of the American Bar Association's
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
Coalition for Justice, a national effort to build trust and confidence in the justice system.
In the late 1990s Connecticut addressed its prison overcrowding issues by transferring inmates to prisons in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. Rep. Lawlor strongly opposed this effort. In 2000 he told The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury...
"this policy is more trouble than it's worth," and that he wanted to "bring them back as soon as possible." In 2003 the New York Times reported Lawlor favored replacing the Virginia facilities with "alternative ways of combating overcrowding, like making it harder to put people back in prison for technical violations of their parole, and argued that transfers should be a last resort."
Lawlor has long advocated what was called in 2004 a "controversial bill" which focused on the increased release of prisoners instead of expanding correctional facilities to handle the increased number of offenders entering the system. Thanks to Lawlor's vocal advocacy the bill was co-sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats, passed unanimously in the State Senate, and only 9 out of 151 representatives in the House voted against it. The bill was then signed into law by Gov. John Rowland, who was under federal investigation at the time. Lawlor's rationale was "The key is to resist doing the simple thing - dumping a bunch of money into a new prison," The response, to expand the number of inmates paroled, became controversial following the July 2007 home invasion
Home invasion
Home invasion is the act of illegally burgling or entering a private and occupied dwelling for the purpose of committing a crime Home invasion is the act of illegally burgling or entering a private and occupied dwelling for the purpose of committing a crime Home invasion is the act of illegally...
murders of the Petit family
Steven Hayes (criminal)
The Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders occurred on July 23, 2007, when a mother and her two daughters were murdered during a home invasion in Cheshire, Connecticut. The Hartford Courant referred to the case as "possibly the most widely publicized crime in the state's history". In 2010,...
in Cheshire, Connecticut
Cheshire, Connecticut
Cheshire is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 28,543 at the 2000 census. The center of population of Connecticut is located in Cheshire. In 2009 Cheshire was ranked 72 in Money Magazine's 100 Best Places to Live.Likewise, in 2011 Cheshire was ranked 73 in...
by two paroled convicts. On August 26, 2007 he defended the state's policy on paroles in a Hartford Courant article "Some people say let's put them all in jail. OK, fine, but that means dramatically increasing taxes or shutting down a bunch of colleges." Due to the public outcry since the Petit murders, Lawlor agreed to hold hearings on Connecticut's parole system and called on state officials to investigate sites to build new prisons. "We are expected to receive information about the costs of these models and possible sites for new prison facilities," he said. State officials and national criminal justice experts testified at the September 11 hearing, with Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane labeling the existing data system for criminal justice "nonexistent." Lawlor criticized the agencies for not having a system of communications among each other. A hearing open to the public was held on November 27, 2007.
Governor M. Jodi Rell
M. Jodi Rell
Mary Jodi Rell is a Republican politician and was the 87th Governor of the U.S. state of Connecticut from 2004 until 2011. She was the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut under Governor John G. Rowland, who resigned during a corruption investigation. Rell is Connecticut's second female Governor,...
announced on September 21, 2007 that there would be a moratorium on further parole of violent offenders. This occurred after a parolee with two prior kidnapping convictions carjacked a vehicle in Hartford and was later shot in a confrontation with New York City police. Lawlor supported her decision for a moratorium on parole and acknowledged this would require prompt efforts to expand prison space. He urged Governor Rell to explore the state's options for either expanding existing prisons, building new prisons, or sending prisoners out of state. The governor in response refused to do so, saying that new additional prison space is not necessary and reiterated her opposition to sending prisoners out of state. Ironically, this placed Rell in the same position Lawlor had long held, as he had opposed sending Connecticut prisoners to Virginia prisons to ease overcrowding.
In testimony before the Judiciary Committee at an emergency meeting convened by Lawlor in October, Department of Corrections Commissioner Teresa Lantz concurred with Governor Rell, testifying that her department does not need nor is requesting additional staff or new prisons Lawlor announced that he disagrees with Rell and Lantz, saying that the state should look into building a new prison, adding beds to existing facilities, or hiring more staff. Nonetheless, on December 12, 2007 he was quoted by the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
as stating "Connecticut has a criminal justice system that already works pretty well."
A special session to enact tougher laws against home invasion
Home invasion
Home invasion is the act of illegally burgling or entering a private and occupied dwelling for the purpose of committing a crime Home invasion is the act of illegally burgling or entering a private and occupied dwelling for the purpose of committing a crime Home invasion is the act of illegally...
and tighten the parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
process was held January 22, 2008. A new law making home invasion a class A felony was passed, as well as reforming the parole board. Lawlor opposed efforts to pass a Three Strikes
Three strikes law
Three strikes laws)"are statutes enacted by state governments in the United States which require the state courts to hand down a mandatory and extended period of incarceration to persons who have been convicted of a serious criminal offense on three or more separate occasions. These statutes became...
law in Connecticut, which was not passed.
Governor Rell reiterated her call for a Three Strikes bill on March 31, 2008, following the kidnapping murder of an elderly New Britain
New Britain
New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
woman committed by a career criminal recently released from Connecticut prison.
He has served on the national drafting team for the Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision and the Interstate Compact for Juvenile Probation and Parole. Recently, he served as a consultant for the United States Department of Justice assisting in the establishment of an adult probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
system in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
.
He was co-sponsor of Raised Bill 1098
Connecticut Raised Bill 1098
Raised Bill 1098 is a bill in the Connecticut State Legislature that would apply solely to Roman Catholic parishes. The bill, introduced in March 2009, was sponsored by Democratic state senators Mike Lawlor and Andrew J...
, which, if passed, would have effectively gutted the traditional hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Connecticut. The Bill, by giving control over matters administrative and fiscal to a board of laity (in which the Bishop and Parish Priest would act only in an advisory capacity) and because it is specific only to the Roman Catholic Church is seen by many as anti-Catholic. The bill was tabled on March 10, 2009.