Chris Powell: What is ‘enough’? One-man crime wave in Conn.

“The Worship of Mammon,’’ by Evelyn De Morgan

MA NCHESTER, Conn.

Connecticut is not just thrilled that UConn men's basketball coach Dan Hurley has declined a lucrative offer from the Los Angeles Lakers. People are also moved by the expressions of loyalty from the coach and his wife, Andrea -- not just loyalty to the state but, as Mrs. Hurley noted in a television interview, loyalty to the players the coach had recruited and who expected to be playing for him next year.

Of course this loyalty was not exactly reciprocated by some of the players on this year's championship UConn team. They are leaving college early for what will be their own lucrative contracts with the pros.

But there's a big difference between the situations of the players and the coach. The players aren't making much if any money and may suddenly earn millions of dollars for each year of early departure. But the coach already is making millions each year, and for having won consecutive national tournaments he is likely to make millions more from UConn with a big raise that will bring his annual compensation close to what the Lakers were offering him.

When one is already earning big money, loyalty isn't the sacrifice lately imagined and cheered by UConn basketball fans, people for whom a night out with the family for dinner and a game is a substantial expense. Indeed, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "the very rich are different from you and me." 

But then there are differences among the rich too.

A recent essay recounted that two financially comfortable guys were discussing a billionaire who had just undertaken a business plan he expected would bring him even greater wealth.  One guy boasted to the other: "I have what he'll never have." The other guy asked: "What's that?" The answer: "Enough."

If Hurley has enough for staying put at UConn -- even if "enough" includes a huge raise -- it still may be considered relative loyalty, and Connecticut may be glad of it all the same, but just shouldn't overdo it.

That wasn't a parody of criminal justice in Connecticut on the front page of The Hartford Courant the other day. It was reality that should have been shocking, except that repeat offenders on the loose are now so numerous in the state that few people -- and apparently none in authority -- are shocked.

State police say a 35-year-old Bozrah man with a long criminal record sped through a stop sign in Griswold, ramming another car and killing one of its passengers, Charlotte Degrado, 96, of Branford. The Courant says the offending driver has at least a dozen criminal convictions, has 10 more criminal cases pending against him, and was free because, after being arrested six times since January, he had managed to post $275,000 in bonds.

State police say the driver and his companions in the speeding car ran away after the crash but the driver was apprehended while hiding in nearby woods with a bag of fentanyl pills and $4,693 in cash.

The driver's convictions, according to the Courant, include larceny, burglary, narcotics possession, and engaging police in pursuit, and he has served three prison sentences since 2016 -- 18 months, a year, 90 days. He repeatedly has violated his probations.

If elected officials in Connecticut were more concerned about public safety than in reducing the state's prison population, they might investigate this situation urgently, interviewing every prosecutor and judge involved with the repeat offender's cases. While individually some of his crimes may seem minor, cumulatively they scream incorrigibility. 

Could no one in the criminal-justice system perceive this before the fatality? Could no one note the chronic offender's 10 pending cases and realize that speedy trials and maximum sentences would be necessary to halt his crime wave?

Since Gov. Ned Lamont and state legislators don't seem to be taking note of the atrocity, will anyone in journalism confront them about it?

Or will the always dim prospect of reform be left to any efforts made by the dead woman's grieving family?]

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).