Reprieve Denied For Convicted Murderer

A state judge has turned down Kevin Stanley’s bid to get out of prison before the end of his 60-year sentence, citing a history of behind-bars disciplinary violations and legal challenges to his conviction for the 1989 murder of Javan Green.

Stanley shot and killed Green in November 1989, when Stanley was 18 years old and Green was 21, following an altercation on Dixwell Avenue near Argyle Street. 

Now 51, Stanley has spent the past 33 years in prison. 

During a video-streamed sentence modification hearing held in April, h and his attorney Alex Taubes joined a number of local criminal justice reformers and anti-violence advocates to make their case for Stanley to get out of prison early. They argued that Stanley had matured, he posed no further risk to the public in middle age, he had accepted responsibility for his crime, and he had the capacity to serve as a role model for young people if released from prison.

Javan Green’s friends and family members, including his sister Loni, brother Reese, and friend Rodney Williams, opposed Stanley’s early release, expressing the enduring pain of the murder that he committed, the impossibility of rectifying the loss of Javan’s life, and questioning whether Stanley had truly been reformed during his three decades in prison.

The hearing raised questions about what successful rehabilitation really means, and about how much a person should be judged by actions in the recent and distant past.

In an 11-page decision issued on May 17, state Superior Court Judge Elpedio Vitale denied Stanley’s sentence modification request, leaving intact his 60-year prison sentence and keeping him behind bars. 

After a ​“review and consideration of the information and material presented, and with contemplation of the property standard, the court finds the defendant has not remotely established ​‘good cause’ to modify the sentence imposed by the trial court,” Vitale wrote. 

Real Remorse, Rehabilitation?

Vitale elaborated in his May 17 decision that the question of whether Stanley has truly rehabilitated and changed the course of his life was key to considering whether there was ​“good cause” to release Stanley early.

Vitale expressed doubt that Stanley had truly accepted responsibility for his crime. He cited four unsuccessful habeas corpus lawsuits that Stanley filed, alleging that the state was incarcerating him unlawfully. One of the early lawsuits claimed that Stanley was innocent; the most recent one, which stretched until 2016, cited insufficient legal representation.

The judge noted that Stanley had claimed at his hearing, ​“I always accepted responsibility for my crime,” and that none of his habeas lawsuits hinged on claims of innocence. Vitale wrote that these words contradicted Stanley’s claims in various court proceedings. 

“The apparent inconsistency between his past and present acceptance of responsibility, without explanation, calls into question the timing of his current position as opportunely linked to the instant motion,” Vitale wrote, implying that Stanley may have claimed to have accepted responsibility for the sole purpose of getting out of prison.

The judge also cited Stanley’s disciplinary record in prison in his decision. ​“Although the defendant has not had a disciplinary issue over his last eight years in corrections,” the judge wrote, ​“his conduct in corrections prior to that is alarming.”

According to Vitale, Stanley has received 56 disciplinary reports during his time so far in prison. He had been disciplined for alleged incidents of fighting, assault, contraband, threats, and arson, among other issues.

The last disciplinary issue occurred in 2015, related to charges of fighting and interfering with safety and security; the judge wrote that Stanley was 44 and ​“squarely in middle age” at the time, hinting that his actions could not be attributed to young recklessness.

Vitale also acknowledged in his decision the enduring suffering that Stanley’s actions back in 1989 continue to cause.

“The family of Javon Green [sic] has continued to suffer from the psychological trauma caused by his violent death. Mr. Green was a responsible, twenty-one year old carpenter who was callously shot to death by the defendant,” Vitale wrote.

Green’s brother, Reese, who still lives in and now owns his long-time family home on Dixwell Avenue, welcomed Vitale’s decision to keep his brother’s killer locked up.

He said he and his family are ​“happy” with the decision, relieved after months of uncertainty about Stanley’s fate.

Reflecting on the last few months, Reese said that the hearing on Stanley’s sentence modification request ​“didn’t open up old wounds, because the wounds are still open.” He left the hearing with a strong belief that ​“if you take a life,” you have an obligation to ​“do your time.”

He recalled discussing the possibility that Stanley might get out early with his mother, who has dementia. ​“With the clearest state of mind, she said she still, to this day, does not know why this man killed her son.”

Green’s one regret about the hearing is that he didn’t relay his mom’s question to Stanley. ​“That’s the question … I would have posed to him,” he said. ​“Can you at least tell my family why you killed my brother?”

In a separate interview for this article, Taubes, Stanley’s attorney in the sentence modification case, criticized the judge’s decision on a number of fronts, including Vitale’s references to Stanley’s habeas lawsuits from many years ago. ​“It threatens people’s constitutional right to access the courts,” Taubes said. ​“It basically says that if you file a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the state of Connecticut’s government, that will be held against you for decades.”

Taubes said he could not speak to the particulars of the incidents that led to Stanley’s 56 disciplinary reports in prison before 2015. ​“It was pretty disappointing that the judge gave such little weight to eight years where Mr. Stanley has not had any disciplinary infractions,” he said, adding that ​“not getting into any [trouble in prison] is very, very difficult.”

Going forward, Taubes said he’s keeping an eye on Senate Bill 952, a bill before the Connecticut state legislature, which would expand eligibility for parole to include people who committed their crimes before the age of 25 — and would apply to Kevin Stanley.