By CHRIS POWELL
Even the Trump administration hasn’t yet tried to mangle the criminal-justice system and civil liberties as much as a judge in Meriden Superior Court is trying to do. Where are Connecticut’s “No Kings” people when they’re needed close to home?
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In what seems unprecedented, at least outside of totalitarian jurisdictions, the judge, Maria del Pilar Gonzalez, has decided to empanel a jury in a murder case while concealing the identities of juror candidates from the defense and the public.
Judge Gonzalez isn’t doing it for fun. She aims to keep the defense and the public ignorant of juror identities because the prosecution has accused the defendant of conspiring to threaten jurors during his first prosecution for murder, which ended in a mistrial in 2024. The accusation arose from a statement given by a man who was imprisoned with the defendant, but the defendant has not yet been tried on the charge and there seems to be no evidence that any juror was threatened.
So with little evidence the judge presumes that the defendant is probably guilty of jury tampering and she wants to guard against it happening again.
But the judge would be wrong even if the defendant had tried to corrupt his first jury. For the identification of jurors to the defense and the public in criminal cases is basic to due process of law. Jurors must be screened against prejudice and improper motives, and they must be accountable for their service. That can’t be achieved if their identities and backgrounds are concealed when jury candidates are examined by the court. If Judge Gonzalez’s decision stands, the jury in the murder case she is trying could be rigged against the defendant and no one besides the judge and prosecutor might know.
If there is a credible threat to a jury’s integrity, the court can guard against it by other means, as by surveying jurors individually in private or even giving them police protection. Empaneling anonymous jurors compromises justice as much as threatening, blackmailing, or bribing jurors does.
The murder defendant’s lawyer has filed an emergency appeal with the state Supreme Court. Meanwhile Judge Gonzalez plans to continue selecting jurors without identifying them. The Supreme Court urgently should undo this secrecy rather than risk the time and expense of appeals that surely will follow a verdict rendered by an anonymous jury. It would be astonishing — and terrifying — if eventually a state or federal appeals court didn’t punt Judge Gonzalez’s decision back to medieval times.
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A NEEDLESS EXPERIMENT: With Governor Lamont’s signature on the legislation last month, Connecticut began its experiment with what has been called “no-excuse absentee voting.” People now may vote by mail for simple convenience; they no longer need to assert a reason like illness, disability, religious observance, military service, or absence from the state.
The more absentee voting there is — the more that people are separated from the direct casting of their ballots, the more that people other than election workers handle their ballots — the greater will be the risk of election fraud. But the governor and General Assembly have decided that the risk is small and worth taking.
Another risk has gotten less consideration — the risk that opening tens of thousands of additional mailed ballots and running them through tabulation machines will delay the calculation and announcement of results and present opportunities for adjusting the results in political emergencies. Even now Hartford and Bridgeport, always the repositories of huge Democratic pluralities, seem unable to report their final results by dawn the day after the election.
With luck “no-excuse absentee voting” will start slow. People have to apply for absentee ballots in person at town hall or by mail, and then complete and mail the ballot, and for some people that may be more trouble than going to their polling places, especially since Connecticut now provides 14 days of early voting in person so Election Day crowds can be avoided. That’s all the convenience and security an election needs.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 