Nominee would be first black chief justice in Connecticut
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Thursday nominated sitting Supreme Court Justice Richard A. Robinson to become the state's chief justice, a choice that may be more popular with Republican lawmakers who rejected the outgoing Democratic governor's first nominee.
Robinson, 60, of Stamford would become the first African-American to serve as the head of the state's highest court and the Judicial Branch. He was nominated to the Superior Court by Gov. John G. Rowland in 2000, elevated to the Appellate Court in 2007 and nominated to the Supreme Court by Malloy in 2013. Malloy said they met in the early 1980s and had worked together in Stamford, where Malloy served as mayor and Robinson was a lawyer for the city.
Robinson would replace Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, who retired in February and is in private practice.
Malloy nominated Robinson in the wake of last week's rejection by the Senate of Justice Andrew McDonald for the role of chief justice. In the wake of the failed nomination of McDonald, Republican Senate President Len Fasano stated immediately that he would work to get Robinson confirmed if he were nominated by Malloy.
"During his esteemed career in public and judicial service, Justice Robinson has demonstrated a keen legal acumen and incisive insight," Malloy said. "I am confident that as chief justice, his tenure will be marked with distinction and his leadership will prove to be invaluable, should he be confirmed."
Robinson said he would do his best to live up to "this incredible nomination."
Also Thursday, Malloy nominated New Haven Superior Court Judge Steven D. Ecker of New Haven to replace Robinson as an associate justice on the Supreme Court and named five other nominees to become Superior Court judges.
They are: Eric D. Coleman of Bloomfield, owner of the Law Office of Eric D. Coleman; Nuala E. Droney of Columbia, a partner in business litigation with Robinson & Cole LLP in Hartford; Ann E. Lynch of Granby, an assistant attorney general who heads up the Employment Rights Unit; Margarita Hartley Moore of Stratford, whose practice at the Law Offices of Margarita Hartley Moore focuses primarily on family law; and James Sicilian of West Hartford, who is general counsel for the law firm of Day Pitney.
Malloy had nominated 11 people to the Superior Court earlier this week and said Thursday that he is not done.
He sent Robinson and Ecker out of the room during a news conference at the Capitol before telling reporters that the "Washington style antics" applied by Republicans during the confirmation process for McDonald and expressed during a debate of Republican candidates for governor Wednesday night would do great harm to the courts. Republicans, in turn, had accused Justice McDonald, a former state legislator and lawyer for Malloy, of being an activist judge and of politicizing Supreme Court decisions, including the one that eliminated the death penalty for those already on death row.
The Judiciary Committee, which finished its legislative business on Wednesday, will be scheduling confirmation hearings for all nominees.
State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, who is not on the Judiciary Committee but would vote on the chief justice nomination if it reaches the Senate floor, said Wednesday that she would apply the same "due diligence" to Robinson's nomination that she applied before voting no on McDonald. Somers said she "struggled" with the McDonald nomination during the confirmation process, interviewing him individually, reading his opinions and giving weight to an affidavit circulated about McDonald's "personal animus" for the husband of Democrat Sen. Gayle Slossberg and for Slossberg, who recused herself from the confirmation hearing.
She said it was not Republicans who made the McDonald nomination a "political circus," but members of McDonald's former law firm, Pullman & Comley, who paid for robocalls and TV ads alleging that Republicans were blocking McDonald because he is gay.
It was highly offensive, Somers said, and was "an unsubstantiated claim of bigotry like something we had never seen."
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