He’s out: Moukawsher resigns. Controversial judge wanted to deny disabled children a public eduction.

Thomas G. Moukawsher has resigned as a judge of the Superior Court after ten years. In this fractious age, most can agree that a decade was enough.

Moukawsher, an active Democrat and a one-term state representative, presided over the state education funding case that went on and on and on. Moukawsher may be remembered for the substance of his decision–overturned by the Supreme Court. Few in the court system will forget that he summoned parties to his courtroom to read the decision to the long-suffering lawyers and litigants.

The opinion attracted particular attention for Moukawsher’s decision included giving school administrators the power to block the schoolhouse door to some disabled children. One commentator called it a “dark poison.” Moukawsher responded to criticism of his heartless pronouncement with an op-ed in The Courant claiming he was not an enemy of the disabled, he was one of them. He had, after all, stabbed himself with a pen while studying in college.

Serious judges customarily explain their decisions in their opinions, not the opinion pages of newspapers.

In a letter to Governor Ned Lamont, Moukawsher announced his resignation is effective at the end of the business day on October 16, 2023.

Published September 5, 2023.