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Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Eugene Calistro, Jr., has seen a lot as a prosecutor over the past 23 years. His most memorable case, he said, involved a brothel, a neighborhood coming together, and the criminal justice system making a difference.
The case centered on a raid and the sale of a Victorian-house-turned-brothel in the early 2000s. The house in the Edgewood section of New Haven became “the scourge of the neighborhood,” Calistro said. Finally, the neighborhood said, “we have had enough.” Rabbi Daniel Greer, one of the neighborhood leaders, along with officials in the police department and the prosecutor’s office moved to close the brothel down.
“There was a raid one particular night, and 14 people were arrested, including two relatives connected to the man who was running the house,” Calistro said. What made this case different, Calistro said, was “people came forward. That doesn’t always happen. There is often fear of retaliation. But in this case people didn’t care about retaliation. They wanted to take back their quality of life. Everybody on board had a part in it. I was very proud to be involved.”
Calistro spoke about the brothel case in an interview on WNHH radio’s “Legal Eagle” program. Calistro is currently the chief prosecutor in the state’s case against Dr. Lishan Wang, who is accused of the murder of a former colleague, Dr. Vanjinder Toor. For the past 22 years, Calistro has worked in New Haven. He transferred to Middletown last year, where he has overseen a series of drug cases involving Wesleyan students. In that connection he was recently appointed a special federal prosecutor.
Looking back over his 23 years as a career prosecutor, he sayid the most profound change in the criminal justice system has been a constitutional amendment that gives crime victims a comprehensive set of rights as a case proceeds through the court process.
The Victims’ Rights Act was adopted in 1996, four years after Calistro became a prosecutor. Nearly 20 years later the victim’s rights law has had a major impact on how the court system works.
Victims’ Rights
“From the get-go victims have rights. It starts after arrest. They are entitled to a speedy adjudication of their case and we are assisted by a victim’s advocate. We meet with the victim, and I tell them what to expect. What is the process. Sometimes it is difficult for them to understand. The victim comes in at the time of arrest.
“A lot of time they want the absolute maximum, but it may not happen. And you can understand that. They may have lost a loved one. But there may be a legitimate defense, say self-defense. There are also the strengths and weaknesses of the case. And then there is the jury. You never know what a jury will do. I like to see certainty … When both parties come out of pretrial conference with an offer and neither party is happy, that is probably the best result.”
What that means, he said, is that both sides have accepted not what they want but what they will learn to live with.
Plea bargaining to a lesser charge and perhaps to a lesser jail time is part of the system. Calistro said 98 percent of all criminal cases plead out, or are settled. Only 2 percent go to trial. “I would rather get something. Getting to the point of plea may take months. There is a good deal of negotiation and offers back and forth,” he said.
The Rise of the Pro-Se Litigant
The state’s case against Dr. Wang is more than five years old. Since it is pending Calistro did not discuss recent events in the case, but he did discuss a separate part of that case, one that was decided by the State Supreme Court 18 months ago.
At the time Dr. Wang was representing himself. At issue was which branch of the court system was going to pay for his expert witnesses, assuming a trial would take place. Would it be the public defender’s office, which no longer represented him or the judicial branch?
There came a moment in the spring of 2013 when Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford asked Calistro to put together what is called “a reservation,” a rare occasion when a lower court asks the state’s highest court to decide an issue in order to avoid two trials. Had Dr. Wang gone to trial and not been able to call expert witnesses that fact would have been the basis of an appeal and a second trial.
So the state’s highest court heard arguments on whether a pro se litigant who is indigent has the right to experts. The high court said those defendants were entitled to experts and the public defender’s office had to foot the bill, even though the public defender did not represent the defendant. Click here to read the story.
Over the years, Calistro said, more and more defendants are representing themselves. He is not sure why. “Maybe it is the mistrust of the bar. Maybe they cannot afford a private attorney. We have an excellent public defender’s office, with very experienced attorneys. It’s hard to understand the move toward self-representation,” he said.
Will there be more pro se defendants and more trials now that they are entitled to paid experts? The floodgates, he said, may well be opening.
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the entire episode.
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