Forgotten in the circus of the Michael Ross execution is the complex litigation pending before Justice Callahan, which challenges Connecticut’s Death Penalty scheme. The litigation alleges that the death penalty, as applied in CT, is unconstitutionally biased on racial and geographic grounds. The Courant reports that Superior Court Judge George Levine has been assigned to assist Justice Callahan, who asked to be relieved because of health issues.

Waterbury SA John Connolly comments

public defenders have conducted an exhaustive study of bias in capital cases, but have not released the results of that study. "If the study shows what they claim it would show, we would have
seen this study years ago. The reason we haven’t heard about the
conclusions is because it did not show what they wanted it to show".

I wish I could claim to know much about the results of this study – but I don’t. Even if I did, I’m sure this is one thing I couldn’t cover on this blawg. But, methinks Atty. Connolly doth protest too much. After all, 6 out of 8 death row inmates are from Waterbury.

This was last brought up by Justice Norcott in his dissent [pdf] to the January decision regarding an Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus by Dan Ross as Next Friend. Justice Norcott wrote,

‘‘to permit an execution to proceed without the benefit of the completion of that study and a ruling thereon amounts to an informal and premature judicial imprimatur on the fairness of the death penalty process.

Moreover, should the habeas court subsequently conclude that our entire death penalty system is fundamentally flawed as discriminatory on the basis of race after the defendant has been executed, our citizens’ confidence in this court and the rest of the judicial branch as a bastion of civil rights might suffer irreparable harm.’’

I’m getting antsy waiting for the Ross decision today.

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