
Chief Justice of Connecticut’s Supreme Court Chase Rogers is
retiring after 11 years. There are murmurs at the State Capital that
Associate
Justice Andrew McDonald might fill the vacancy. When all vacancies are
filled, Governor Dannel Malloy will have appointed 6 of 7 Justices to
the Court.
McDonald, the youngest Justice on the court, was the lame-duck
Governor's Chief Legal Counsel before he was appointed to the Court by
Malloy in 2013. McDonald had been with the Governor since Malloy’s
salad days as Mayor of Stamford. Malloy’s Chief Counsels and political
staff
have been particularly favored during his administration. Luke Bronin,
presently Mayor of Hartford, a city teetering on the brink of bankruptcy
and in
need of frequent cash transfusions from the state, also had served as
Chief
Counsel to Malloy.
In 2011, Malloy appointed Mike Lawlor as Undersecretary for
Criminal Justice, a new position, and Lawlor has taken it upon himself
to
reform Connecticut’s criminal justice system. He instituted a “get out
of jail
early” program that for a time was releasing into Connecticut’s social
bloodstream violent criminals such as rapists and arsonists. Lawlor now
proudly boasts he is sending “non-violent” criminals to college.
As co-chairs of the General Assembly’s Judiciary committee, McDonald
and Lawlor strove mightily to repeal Connecticut’s death penalty law, a
difficult chore at the time because the repeal effort coincided with a multiple murder in Cheshire by two paroled prisoners, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky. The pair, who had
murdered the wife and two daughters of present State Representative Dr. William
Petit, were sentenced to death, and lingered for years on Connecticut’s Death
Row, until the death penalty was found unconstitutional by Connecticut’s
Supreme Court in 2015. By that time, McDonald was a sitting State Supreme Court
Associate Justice.
The abolition effort had in it more twists and turns than a
slinky. In 2009, then Governor Jodi Rell
vetoed a death penalty abolition bill, citing the horrific Cheshire murders as
a principal reason. In 2012, the General Assembly voted to repeal the death
penalty prospectively, leaving the penalty in place for 11 prisoners on death
row. In 2015, the State Supreme Court declared
capital punishment inconsistent with Connecticut’s Constitution, thus
effectively commuting the death penalties pending against all death row
prisoners to life
in prison.
The Court pulled out of the usual sociological hat the
relevant mumbo-jumbo to give heft to their decision. The death penalty, the
justices found, “no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and
no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose.” The majority decision was
written by Associate Justice Richard
Palmer, who was joined by three other justices. The Court arrived at this sunburst
only three years after Connecticut’s backward General Assembly had exempted the
11 death row prisoners from the death penalty repeal law.
For years, courts have been in the habit of boldly going
where electable legislators fear to tread. Judges are not subject to the
whimsy
of voters who might just believe that capital punishment, under limited
circumstances – multiple murders such as occurred in Sandy Hook
Elementary
School, terrorist multiple murders, the murder of police officers or
prison officials,
murder committed by a prisoner who has been sentenced to life for a
previous murder, etc. – is fully justified and might be useful as a
deterrent
to criminals contemplating comparable mayhem.
Anti-death penalty advocates argued unpersuasively that the
death penalty was not a deterrent, prompting some disputatious rationalists to
point out that if the death penalty was not a deterrent, neither were lesser
penalties. Those supporting abolition of the death penalty on such flimsy grounds
were really advocating for the abolition of all penal punishment. Why not open
the prison doors and send the inmates to college, Lawlor’s solution to
recidivism, close down the courts and read the last rights over a very
expensive, moribund judicial apparatus? In fact, all punishments un-applied are
non-deterrent. Connecticut’s death penalty, however just in some cases, died
the death of a thousand cuts; it expired from relentless appeals and delays. The
Supreme Court delivered its much appreciated death blow by resorting to
sociological gibberish.To read the rest of Don's commentary, visit his web site.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Authors of comments and posts are solely responsible for their statements. Please email MiddletownInsider@gmail.com for questions or concerns. This blog, (and any site using the blogger platform), does not and cannot track the source of comments. While opinions and criticism are fine, they are subject to moderator discretion; slander and vile attacks of individuals will not to be tolerated. Middletown Insider retains the right to deny any post or comment without explanation.