American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Connecticut Urges Federal Court to Move Forward with Challenge to Ebron v. Zaccagnini

HARTFORD – The ACLU Foundation of Connecticut (“ACLU”), together with the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School (“LSO”), filed a brief in federal court on October 14 opposing the state’s effort to throw out Ebron v. Zaccagnini, a lawsuit challenging a Connecticut parole law that decides who gets a second chance based on the date of their sentencing hearing.

In 2023, Connecticut lawmakers set out to give people who committed crimes when they were between 18 and 21 a chance to be considered for early parole, recognizing that the human brain keeps developing into a person’s mid-twenties. But the law that passed—Public Act 23-169—was narrowed at the final hour. Under the law, people who were sentenced after October 1, 2005, are shut out from seeking youth-based parole, no matter their growth or their readiness to return home.

The result is that an entire group of people lose the opportunity to return home to loved ones because a court happened to schedule their sentencing on the wrong day. When this law took effect, at least 153 people in Connecticut were incarcerated for crimes committed under 21 years of age, but only 35 of them were sentenced early enough to qualify for youth-based parole under P.A. 23-169. More than 100 people were excluded, at least in part, due to the law’s sentencing date restriction.

Bryant Ebron is one of the individuals affected by this arbitrary date. He was 20 when he committed his crime in 2003. He is now 43, married, and has a strong support system. He meets every requirement of the law except one: he was sentenced in March 2007. As a result, he cannot even apply for parole.

“Mr. Ebron is simply asking for the chance to make his case to the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The same chance the legislature gave to others who were in his exact position,” said Joseph Gaylin, Staff Attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Connecticut. “Whether someone gets that chance should not depend on a court’s calendar. That isn’t justice. It’s luck.”

“But for the arbitrary sentencing date cut-off, Mr. Ebron would have been eligible for parole the day P.A. 23-169 went into effect,” said Hannah Coyle, Law Student Intern with LSO. “P.A. 23-169 was designed to reckon with emerging understandings of youth brain development and to recognize that young people deserve a second chance. Mr. Ebron has been denied the opportunity to request a second chance—to tell his story and demonstrate his readiness to return home—solely because of when the court scheduled his sentencing.”

The state has asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that, when it comes to parole, lawmakers are free to do as they please. But the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection mandate applies to parole and sentencing just like any other law. A legislative classification that is wholly arbitrary is a form of discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause.

In response, Mr. Ebron’s brief argues that the October 1, 2005, date cut-off is irrational in several ways. The date restriction is disconnected from the law’s stated purpose, and it is not tied to any major sentencing reforms in Connecticut. As the brief notes, one lawmaker even stated on the record that sentencing reform did not really begin until 2010. Moreover, when Connecticut passed a different youth parole law in 2015, the legislature imposed no date cut-off. At least 123 people have returned home under the 2015 law, with only 11 percent returning to prison—a recidivism rate well below that of the general prison population.

“Even compared to other Connecticut laws affecting sentencing, P.A. 23-169 is an aberration,” said Jonah Landsman, Law Student Intern with LSO. “The law governing parole eligibility for people who committed crimes under 18 contains no sentencing date cut-off. Meanwhile, P.A. 23-169 not only includes a cut-off for no apparent reason, but it places that cut-off on a completely random date.”

The lawsuit also argues that the cut-off date deepens racial disparities. Black and brown people have long faced the brunt of harsh sentencing and an arbitrary line like this one compounds that harm.

“The sentencing cut off Connecticut established in 2023 is one of the most arbitrary and irrational criminal policies ever enacted in the United States,” said Elizabeth Hinton, Professor of History and Black Studies at Yale University. “Cases like Mr. Ebron’s underscore the consequences of the law’s application in practice. And because ninety percent of the people impacted by the policy are Black and Latino, the cut off date contributes to the marked racial inequalities in the state’s criminal system: Connecticut is currently number 1 in the nation for racial disparities in youth incarceration. It is time to repeal this unfair, harmful policy and advance more equitable approaches to public safety in the process.”

Mr. Ebron is asking the court to let the case move forward so that he is not locked out of a chance to return home for arbitrary reasons. Lawmakers said they wanted to give people who committed crimes in their youth an opportunity to show how far they have come. Leaving this cut-off in place sends the message that a calendar date matters more than they do, and the Constitution does not permit that.

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