{"id":468600,"date":"2010-03-24T12:56:22","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T16:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.74602"},"modified":"2010-03-24T13:04:28","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T17:04:28","slug":"bill-that-would-increase-negligent-homicide-penalty-gets-hearing-mcgonigal-arce-and-kane-submit-testimony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/468600","title":{"rendered":"Bill That Would Increase Negligent Homicide Penalty Gets Hearing; McGonigal, Arce and Kane Submit Testimony"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <span lang=\"EN\"><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Richard McGonigal, of Norwalk, wants to see tougher penalties for those guilty of negligent homicide, and he submitted written testimony to the legislature&#8217;s judiciary committee Wednesday, asking lawmakers to pass a bill that would raise the maximum sentence for negligent homicide from 6 months to two years. <\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">McGonigal lost his wife in February 2007 when a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. McGonigal said the driver was charged with negligent homicide and only had to pay a $200 fine after a plea deal allowed him to plead guilty to a reduced charge of failure to maintain the established lane. <\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">McGonigal is awaiting the start of a civil trial for wrongful death. <\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">McGonigal said that raising the maximum sentence for negligent homicide would give prosecutors leverage, allowing them to pursue a plea agreement that would ensure that the person pleads guilty to a felony, pays a significant fine and agrees to do extensive community service. The passage of the bill would bring honor and respect to victims of negligent homicide and their families, he wrote in his testimony.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Relatives of Angel Arce Torres, the Hartford man who was killed in a hit-and-run accident in 2008 on Park Street, also testified in favor of the bill Wednesday, but state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, said negligent homicide did not apply to Torres&#8217; case. <\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Luis Negron, the driver who hit Torres, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and evading responsibility, charges that could come with a combined maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Negron&#8217;s sentencing is scheduled for May 3.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">When it comes to increasing negligent homicide penalties, Chief State&#8217;s Attorney Kevin Kane warned lawmakers in his written testimony to be careful and to consider other existing penalties for other offenses that would not be changed by the bill. <\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&#8220;We do not doubt that this bill comes before the committee with the best of intentions; however, it would result in an inconsistent and imbalanced statutory scheme,&#8221; Kane said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard McGonigal, of Norwalk, wants to see tougher penalties for those guilty of negligent homicide, and he submitted written testimony to the legislature&#8217;s judiciary committee Wednesday, asking lawmakers to pass a bill that would raise the maximum sentence for negligent homicide from 6 months to two years. McGonigal lost his wife in February 2007 when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-468600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}