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Thread: Russell Peeler, Jr. - Connecticut

  1. #21
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    State Supreme Court will again hear death-penalty arguments

    On the 17th anniversary of the murder of a 9-year-old Bridgeport boy and his mother on orders from drug kingpin Russell Peeler Jr., prosecutors will try to convince the state’s highest court that he must die.

    States attorneys will offer new reasons to a seven-judge Supreme Court panel on why the repeal of the death penalty should not apply to Peeler — and the 10 others on Death Row.

    While the high court narrowly ruled last summer that the inmates are exempt from the death penalty, state prosecutors will argue that the General Assembly did not mean the 2012 repeal of the death penalty to apply to those already sentenced to die.

    “The judgment in this case must be reversed with respect to the imposition of a sentence of death and the case must be remanded with direction to impose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release,” said a brief, filed by Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher and Lisa Steele, a private attorney, for Peeler, who will not attend the hearing, which will take place at 10 a.m. in the historic Supreme Court chamber on Capitol Avenue.

    The makeup of the court has changed since last August, when Associate Justice Richard Palmer led a four-member majority in declaring that executing the Death Row inmates after the statewide repeal would amount to cruel and unusual punishment for the state’s most-dangerous murderers.

    Associate Justice Flemming L. Norcott Jr., who sided with Palmer, has since retired and has been replaced by Associate Justice Richard A. Robinson who prosecutors hope is more-conservative on the death penalty.

    Conversely, the new argument over the repeal could put Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers in a position to switch to Palmer’s side to protect the court’s precedent-setting decision last August.

    Edward J. Gavin, a Bridgeport attorney who is a past president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and an opponent of the death penalty, said Wednesday the case has attracted the attention of the state’s entire legal community.

    “The argument tomorrow is a roundabout attempt to influence the previous decision and prior rulings,” Gavin said in a phone interview. “People in the abolition world, we’re all nervous that the Supreme Court could reverse itself.”

    Although Peeler’s brother Adrian Peeler killed B.J. Brown and his mother, Karen Clarke, on Jan. 7, 1999, Russell received the death penalty for ordering the killings. Adrian Peeler is serving a 25-year sentence.

    The boy had been expected to testify against Russell Peeler in an unrelated shooting case.

    Police found Clarke lying face up on the floor of her son's room, a telephone a few inches from an outstretched hand. The boy was dead in the hall, a bullet to the back of his head.

    Since last August’s decision, the 11 men on Death Row have remained there, pending resentencing hearings in state Superior Court.

    At the time of the legislative debates on the repeal in 2012, state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle stressed that it would not include those on Death Row at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers.

    Earlier this week, state Sen. Michael A. McLachlan, R-Danbury, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the General Assembly should revisit the issue to pass additional laws to make sure that Peeler and the other killers eventually face the executioner.

    “The legislature and the governor had no intention of sparing the lives of Connecticut’s most heinous and depraved murderers who were already on Death Row,” McLachlan said.

    http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/S...ts-6740995.php

  2. #22
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    Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously rejects ex-death row inmate’s appeal

    HARTFORD - The Connecticut Supreme Court has rejected a former death row inmate’s appeal of one of his murder convictions.

    Justices ruled 7-0 Monday that a lower court didn’t violate Russell Peeler Jr.’s rights when it refused to order the state to pay for a lawyer of his choice for his 2013 retrial in the 1997 killing of Rudolph Snead Jr. in Bridgeport, after the Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

    He was convicted at retrial after the state hired another lawyer and sentenced him to 105 years in prison.

    Peeler also was convicted in the 1999 killings of an 8-year-old witness in the Snead case and the boy’s mother. He was sentenced to death.

    The state Supreme Court abolished capital punishment last year — a decision it is reconsidering in Peeler’s appeal of the death penalty.

    http://www.nhregister.com/general-ne...inmates-appeal

  3. #23
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    State Supreme Court Upholds Abolishment Of Death Penalty, Including For Death-Row Inmates

    By Alaine Griffin and Matthew Kauffman
    The Hartford Courant

    The Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld its decision to abolish the state's death penalty, including for inmates on death row.

    The 5-2 ruling, released Thursday, upholds the justices 4-3 decision last August that the death penalty was unconstitutional for all – including 11 convicts on Connecticut's death row – following the legislature's abolition three years ago of capital punishment in Connecticut. Lawmakers made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death sentences already imposed on those facing execution before the bill was passed.

    Attorneys for those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. The ruling last August came in the case of Eduardo Santiago, who had faced the death penalty for the December 2000 killing of Joseph Niwinski in West Hartford. Santiago has been resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release.

    In the August ruling, the justices in the majority wrote that executing an inmate "would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment" and that the death penalty "no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency."

    Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, who joined with Justice Carmen E. Espinosa and Justice Peter T. Zarella in the August dissents, voted this time with the majority, saying she felt bound to the doctrine of "stare decisis," a Latin term meaning "stand by things decided."

    "Just as my personal beliefs cannot drive my decision-making, I feel bound by the doctrine of stare decisis in this case for one simple reason—my respect for the rule of law," Rogers wrote. "To reverse an important constitutional issue within a period of less than one year solely because of a change in justices on the panel that is charged with deciding the issue, in my opinion, would raise legitimate concerns by the people we serve about the court's integrity and the rule of law in the state of Connecticut."

    Rogers said, "stability in the law and respect for the decisions of the court as an institution, rather than a collection of individuals, in and of themselves, are of critically important value, especially on an issue of such great public significance as the constitutionality of the death penalty."

    In separate dissents, Zarella and Espinosa rejected the assertion that respect for precedent mandated Thursday's ruling, saying that doctrine should never be used to enshrine a flawed decision. And they pointedly noted that Rogers herself had blasted the original Santiago decision as "a house of cards, falling under the slightest breath of scrutiny."

    They also criticized Justice Richard A. Robinson, who came on the court after the Santiago decision and voted with the majority, along with justices Richard N. Palmer, Dennis G. Eveleigh and Andrew J. McDonald. Like Rogers, Robinson cited the importance of respecting precedent.

    "I cannot fathom how Chief Justice Rogers and Justice Robinson believe they respect the rule of law by supporting a decision that is completely devoid of any legal basis or believe it is more important to spare this court of the purported embarrassment than to correct demonstrable constitutional error," Zarella wrote.

    In switching her position on Santiago, Rogers wrote that overruling the case so soon after it was decided could lead to public perception that Supreme Court rulings are based on the personal whims of its members and would undermine predictability in the law.

    "The short answer to those concerns," Espinosa wrote, "is that they are unjustified and irrelevant when the prior precedent at issue is clearly wrong." And that is particularly true, she wrote, when the "clearly wrong, recently decided case" upended prior decisions and violated the rule of precedent.

    Zarella also dismissed the assertion that overruling the Santiago decision would send the message that closely decided cases can be revisited whenever there is a change in the Supreme Court membership. "My response is concise and simple: So what," he wrote. "This has been, and will always be the case."

    Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, in a statement released Thursday afternoon, said the ruling "reaffirms what the court has already said: those currently serving on death row will serve the rest of their life in prison with no possibility of ever obtaining freedom."

    Malloy noted that Connecticut in the last half century has executed only two inmates, both of whom volunteered for death.

    "Opinions on this issue vary, and it's critical that we respect that diversity of perspectives," Malloy said. "These are deeply personal and moral issues that we as a society are facing and the court has once again ruled on today. Our focus today should not be on those currently sitting on death row, but with their victims and those surviving family members. My thoughts and prayers are with them on this difficult day."

    Chief State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane said his office respects the decision and would "move forward" to re-sentence the individuals currently on death row to a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release.

    "The Division of Criminal Justice and I extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims of these crimes and to their families," Kane said in a statement. "I also wish to express my appreciation to the dedicated professionals in the Division of Criminal Justice who have devoted so much of themselves throughout this process."

    In October, the high court denied a request by the chief state's attorney to postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed its denial of a request by prosecutors to re-argue Santiago.

    Prosecutors then filed briefs arguing for the Santiago decision to be overruled in the pending appeal of Russell Peeler, who was sentenced to death for ordering the 1999 killings in Bridgeport of 8-year-old Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr. and his mother, Karen Clarke. The justices heard arguments on those briefs in January.

    Prosecutors said in deciding the Santiago case, the court "did not confine its analysis" to the actual claim raised -- whether enacting the 2012 law invalidated the death sentences of those sentenced before the law went into effect. The court made its ruling, prosecutors said, "for reasons having little or nothing to do with" enactment of the 2012 law and "erred in its ruling on lines of analysis and authorities the parties had not discussed."

    Prosecutors also argued that the justices relied on "flawed historical analysis" to justify their "departure from well-established principles of law" and incorrectly determined that state residents prior to the 1818 constitution gave the high court the authority to act independently to invalidate a penalty.

    Public defenders for Peeler made several arguments against overruling the Santiago decision in court briefs, pointing foremost to the legal doctrine of "stare decisis" -- letting decided issues stand. Senior Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher told the justices that the state faced an "uphill battle" in getting the ruling reversed.

    "What the state is asking this court to do ... is simply breathtaking," Rademacher said at the January hearing. "It is asking this court to overrule a long line of cases that have affirmed the court's authority as a constitutional matter to protect the citizens of this state against cruel and unusual punishment."

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...526-story.html

  4. #24
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    Resentencing For Death Row Inmate Peeler Scheduled for July 1

    BRIDGEPORT — Russell Peeler Jr., sent to death row for ordering the 1999 killings of Karen Clarke and her 8-year-old son Leroy "B.J." Brown in Bridgeport, is scheduled to be resentenced in Superior Court to life in prison without the possibility of release on July 1, attorneys and court officials said Wednesday.

    Peeler, 44, will be the second of Connecticut's 11 formerly condemned prisoners to be resentenced since last month's Supreme Court ruling that spared their lives. The justices initially outlawed capital punishment for all in an August 2015 ruling, but the decision was appealed by prosecutors.

    Cheshire home invasion killer Steven Hayes was resentenced last week in New Haven Superior Court to six consecutive life sentences without the chance for parole. Hayes' accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is scheduled for resentencing on July 26 in Superior Court in New Haven.

    Peeler was sentenced to death in 2007 after a Superior Court jury in Bridgeport convicted him of ordering his younger brother, Adrian Peeler, to kill Clarke and her son at a Bridgeport apartment. The boy and his mother were slated to testify against the older Peeler at an upcoming murder trial.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...622-story.html

  5. #25
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    Second Death Row Inmate Resentenced To Life Without Parole

    BRIDGEPORT — Russell Peeler Jr., sent to death row for ordering the 1999 killings of Karen Clarke and her 8-year-old son Leroy "B.J." Brown in Bridgeport, was resentenced Friday in Superior Court to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of release.

    Peeler, 44, was the second of Connecticut's 11 formerly condemned prisoners to be resentenced since a landmark Supreme Court ruling that spared their lives.

    The two new life sentences for Peeler were added to a life sentence Peeler is already serving for federal drug crimes as well as a 105-year prison sentence he faces for a separate killing.

    Peeler spoke briefly at Friday's hearing in opposition to the conditions of his confinement saying, "they want to hold us in Northern [Correctional Institution] for no reason."

    Peeler's attorney, Mark Rademacher, referred to a brewing controversy about the conditions under which the former death row inmates will be held, an issue he said he expects will be litigated but that he did not want to litigate at Friday's hearing.

    Cheshire home invasion killer Steven Hayes was resentenced last month in New Haven Superior Court to six consecutive life sentences without the chance for parole. Hayes' accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is scheduled for resentencing on July 26 in Superior Court in New Haven.

    Peeler was sentenced to death in 2007 after a Superior Court jury in Bridgeport convicted him of ordering his younger brother, Adrian Peeler, to kill Clarke and her son at a Bridgeport apartment. The boy and his mother were slated to testify against the older Peeler at an upcoming murder trial.

    Rademacher had asked Judge Robert Devlin to run the sentences concurrently.

    "Now, I think I agree with the defense in a sense that as a practical matter the relationship of the sentences probably is not going to have much difference given the, you know, sort of cumulative sentences that are imposed to Mr. Peeler," Devlin said. "But in my view, if imposing consecutive life sentences does nothing more than place an exclamation point signifying this community's condemnation of these dastardly crimes, then it's worth it."

    Adrian Peeler, 38, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for his role in the slayings.

    According to trial testimony, the Peelers ran a lucrative crack cocaine ring and Leroy witnessed an attempt by Peeler to shoot his mother's boyfriend in a drug-money dispute. Peeler went after the boyfriend a second time, killing him. Days before Peeler was to be tried for the slaying, Clarke and her son were found shot to death in their Bridgeport apartment.

    Peeler was convicted of capital felony charges in 2000 but a jury deadlocked on whether to sentence him to death. A judge then imposed life in prison without the possibility of release. Prosecutors successfully appealed the judge's decision, arguing that the judge should have declared a mistrial instead. Though the high court also agreed with a challenge by the defense of the trial court's refusal to permit disclosure of a witness's psychiatric records to the jury, the justices said the mistake was harmless and ordered a new sentencing hearing for Peeler in which jurors voted for death.

    The Supreme Court's 5-2 decision last month, which upheld its landmark August 2015 ruling that said capital punishment in Connecticut is unconstitutional, overturned Peeler's death sentences and ordered the lower court to impose a new punishment of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...701-story.html

  6. #26
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    Man convicted in killings of woman, boy witness loses appeal

    A three-judge panel on Monday rejected the latest appeal of a Connecticut man who was once on death row for ordering the 1999 killings of a woman and her 8-year-old son because the boy was going to testify against him.

    Three judges of the state Appellate Court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling against former Bridgeport drug dealer Russell Peeler Jr., who was resentenced to life in prison last year after Connecticut abolished the death penalty.

    Peeler claimed a lower court judge made several wrong decisions in his habeas corpus appeal of his murder convictions, including ruling that prosecutors did not violate the law by failing to disclose recordings of a witness and informant to the defense before trial. The three judges said the state was not required to release those recordings.

    Peeler's lawyer, Lisa Steele, said she's disappointed with the ruling. She said she hadn't yet talked with Peeler about the decision, but an appeal to the state Supreme Court is likely.

    Authorities said Peeler had his younger brother, Adrian Peeler, fatally shoot Karen Clarke and her son, B.J. Brown, in their Bridgeport home. B.J. was going to testify against Russell Peeler in the 1997 killing of Clarke's boyfriend, Rudolph Snead Jr. Adrian Peeler is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

    Peeler and Snead were partners in a large-scale drug ring that sold crack cocaine in Bridgeport and had a falling out, according to court documents. Several months before Snead was killed, Peeler shot and wounded Snead while Snead was driving with his son and B.J. in his car, police said. The boys weren't hurt.

    http://journalstar.com/news/national...c93e2c4a0.html
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