Changes in Public Defender Commission appointments. Lamont makes Palmer chair. Chief Justice substitutes retired Judge Elliot Solomon. Judge Prats remains.
Some late changes Friday in appointments to the beleaguered Public Defender Services Commission. Chief Justice Richard A. Robinson rescinded his appointment of retired Associate Justice Richard Palmer, who will be appointed chair by Governor Ned Lamont. This makes Lamont the second Greenwich aristocrat to appoint Palmer to an important state government position.
Palmer is familiar with upheaval in law-related organizations. He and four Supreme Court colleagues quit the state judges’ association when a bipartisan majority of the state Senate rejected then-Governor Daniel P. Malloy’s 2018 nomination of Justice Andrew McDonald to serve as chief justice. Stories of McDonald’s bullying when he was a member of the Senate figured prominently in McDonald’s defeat despite a generously financed campaign in support of McDonald. McDonald’s vote on the high court for striking down the state’s death penalty law, passed when he was Malloy’s legal counsel, also rankled senators who had felt the lash of McDonald’s disdain.
Palmer squeaked to his final eight-year term on the court in 2017. The Senate voted 19-17 to confirm the former prosecutor who dealt a blow to the rule of law in 2015. Palmer created a legal doctrine to strike down the same death penalty law that dogged McDonald the next year. Palmer relied on his contention that the law “no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency….” to overturn the law. The gossamer but lethal Palmer doctrine makes it possible for any majority to overturn any law. Then-Chief Justice Chase Rodgers rebuked Palmer when she wrote that the legislature has a better sense of standards of decency than the high court. No one should be surprised if public defenders raise the standards of decency rule in sharing their recent experiences.
Judge Sheila Prats, appointed by Chief Justice Robinson Wednesday, remains.
Chief Justice Robinson appointed retired Superior Court Elliot Solomon to the spot Palmer occupied for a few days this week. Judge Solomon’s appointment comes as a jolt to veteran public defenders. They recall him as often hostile to their clients.
More appointments are expected early next week. Speaker of the House Matthew Ritter, who has left his vacant for months, is expected to to appoint former state Representative Russell Morin. Morin served five terms in the House. He did not seek a sixth term in 2020. Morin remains active in Democratic politics and works for the Connecticut Employees Union Independent.
Senate President Martin Looney appears likely to appoint polymath New Haven lawyer, Senate Clerk, presenter and author Michael Jefferson to the commission.
State law limits the number of members not appointed by the chief justice to no more than three from any political party.
The appointments will allow the commission to meet at their regularly scheduled meeting next week. Approving minutes from January’s executive session may prove a trial. Those minutes, in an unusual move, were tabled at the February meeting. The inability to agree on approving the meeting minutes
Posted March 31, 2023.