Former teen offender asks state Supreme Court to overturn 60-year sentence

BRIDGEPORT — Twentyfour years later, it is still considered the largest melee to ever hit a courthouse here.

But on Monday, Keith Belcher is asking the state’s highest court to disregard what happened that day in October 1996 and instead declare he was the victim of an illegal sentence.

Ajury in the Fairfield County Courthouse had just found the 17-year-old Belcher guilty of sexually assaulting, beating and robbing an elderly Bridgeport woman as she was carrying an armful of Christmas presents for her grandchildren into her home on Christmas Eve 1993. At the time, Belcher was out on a weekend pass from a state juvenile offender facility.

The verdict was barely out of the foreman’s mouth when Belcher punched the judicial marshal standing beside him in the side of the face and shoved another into the wall.

He then charged at the jury.

Belcher was tackled by marshals just feet from the jury box.

Belcher’s family then began leaping over the spectator benches in the back of the courtroom apparently attempting to come to his aid. They attacked the marshals. One woman leaped on a female marshal’s back, pummeling her in the face and head.

When it was finally over, a half-dozen members of Belcher’s family were arrested and two marshals went to the hospital, one on a stretcher.

“I had never seen a situation where I saw six jurors pinned against the back wall cowering in fear as Mr. Belcher conducted himself, striking one of the (marshals) and then continuing to struggle with the officers who were trying to detain him,” said the prosecutor at the time, Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Cornelius Kelly.

Superior Court Judge

Michael Hartmere sentenced Belcher to 60 years in prison on kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery and burglary charges for the 1993 crime, referring to Belcher during the sentencing hearing as a “super predator.”

State appeals courts later upheld the conviction and sentence, but Belcher has refiled his appeal based on the state legislature’s recent actions increasing the age of being treated as a juvenile to 18.

In his appeal to the state Supreme Court, Belcher claims that his 60-year sentence for non-homicide crimes committed when he was 14 violates the state constitution as excessive and

disproportionate and the state constitution’s eighth amendment as grossly disproportionate. He also claims that the trial court improperly rejected his claim that the sentencing court relied on inaccurate information when it described him as a “super predator.”

“The defendant’s 60-year sentence is the longest determinate sentence imposed on a 14 year old in Connecticut, and no other person in Connecticut is currently serving a sentence longer than 20 years for a non-homicide offense committed at age 14,” states Belcher’s lawyer, Deputy Assistant Public Defender Alexandra Harrington.