Bozzuto to replace Carroll. Ficeto rises to deputy. Changes in state court administration begin in January.

Chief Court Administrator Patrick L. Carroll, III, will take senior status on January 30th, Chief Justice Richard Robinson announced Friday afternoon. Popular deputy administrator Judge Elizabeth Bozzuto will become the new leader of the day-to-day administration of the state’s court system.

Judge Anna Ficeto, currently serving as Administrative Judge in Waterbury, moves into Bozzuto’s position. Ficeto served as legal counsel to former Governor M. Jodi Rell. She was nominated to the Superior Court in January 2012 by then-Governor Dannel P. Malloy. Ficeto’s skill moving the state’s informal but influential levers of power should prove useful in setting a new tone in the court’s administration office.

Bozzuto and Ficeto have worked together before. Both had to address and cope with Carroll’s inability to get Judge Alice Bruno to perform her duties. Bruno left her Waterbury chambers in November 2019 and never returned. She complained in a proceeding before the Supreme Court earlier this year that Ficeto would not greet her when they passed in the hallways of the Waterbury courthouse.

Carroll concluded his announcement by noting, “I’m not going anywhere. As long as the Chief Justice and Judge Bozzuto can tolerate me, I will continue to work here in the Office of the Chief Court Administrator, on a somewhat reduced schedule….” Judges on the frontline of the court system will nevertheless look forward to Bozzuto setting a new and courteous tone in her office.

Published December 19, 2022.