Appeals court rules compromise was illegal
Conditions for former death row inmate questioned after capital punishment abolished
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the political compromise the state Legislature voted into law a decade ago to abolish capital punishment is unconstitutional, but ordered further proceedings to determine whether the conditions it imposes for the imprisonment of at least one former death row inmate are illegally harsh.
The appellate decision goes against the state by substantially affirming U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill’s 2018 ruling in a suit against the prison system by inmate Richard Reynolds, a New York drug dealer who shot to death a Waterbury police officer in 1992. Williams argued — and Underhill agreed — that the conditions of solitary confinement under which he was imprisoned as a result of the legislative compromise were so restrictive they amounted to “cruel and unusual” punishment.”
Judge Jose A. Cabranes, writing for the New York-based federal appeals court, agreed with Underhill that the compromise resulted in an illegal law that was illegally applied to Reynolds. But the appeals court sent the case back to Underhill for further argument about the legality of the conditions in which Reynolds and perhaps other former death row inmates are confined.
What the decision means for the state Department of Correction was not clear — beyond resolving questions about the restrictions it can impose on the state’s worst offenders. The state Supreme Court overturned the legislative compromise in 2015, three years after Reynold’s sued in federal court. Last month, Gov. Ned Lamont said he is closing the Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, the state’s only so-called Supermax prison, where Underhill said Reynolds was being confined to a cell for as much as 21 to 22 hours a day and denied almost all human contact.
Underhill undertook an extensive investigation as part of the suit into conditions of imprisonment imposed on Reynolds. He decided that there was no significant dispute between Reynolds and the state over the harshness of the conditions and, as a result, settled the case with a pretrial ruling for Reynolds. The state appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit disagreed, saying there was disagreement and it returning that aspect of he case to Underhill for resolution.
The appeals judges agreed with Underhill’s determination about the claim at the center of Reynold’s suit - that the political compromise constructed to abolish capital punishment in Connecticut was illegal.
The so-called compromise was a not-very-subtle effort by legislative death penalty opponents to win votes in a state where most people supported capital punishment. It established that when capital punishment was abolished, those who would be spared execution would have to spend the rest of their lives imprisoned under harsh, death row conditions — among them, little if no interaction with others; no physical contact, ever, with family; and only a brief period of two hours or so a day outside of cramped, concrete cells.
Theresulting law, knownassection 18-10b, created a new category of “special circumstance” inmates — Reynolds and the ten other killers previously sentenced to death — and it guaranteed that they would spent the remainder of their lives in confined under conditions created especially for them. Underhill and the appeals judges said the legislature acted illegally by identifying a select group of people and imposing a punishment on them without the benefit of a trial.
Reynolds was sentenced to death for shooting Waterbury policeman Walter Williams a week before Christmas in 1992. Williams had stopped Reynolds and was planning to frisk him. Reynolds bumped Williams to learn whether he was wearing a bulletproof vest, then pulled a gun and shot the officer in the head.
Reynolds has become a prolific prison litigator, suing the state, for amongother things, violating his first amendment right by denying him pornography. He challenged his prison conditions in a long, handwritten suit in 2013. Two years later, Underhill allowed a law clinic affiliated with Columbia University’s law school to be appointed, at public expense, to press the suit in Reynold’s behalf.
In a strongly-worded, 2019 decision, Underhill ruled for Reynolds and against eight current and former prison administrators. He said that the conditions of Reynolds’ confinement — conditions spelled out in 18-10b — violate multiple constitutional protections, including the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Underhill cited research done by a Reynolds’ witness that suggests prison conditions, such as his, more often than not drive inmates insane.
Among the court’s findings: “He lives alone in a 12 foot by 7 foot cell. His cell is enclosed by concrete walls, a metal door, and a three-inch wide window. Reynolds is allowed out of his cell for two fifteen-minute periods to eat lunch and dinner. He is allowed to take one fifteen-minute shower each day. He is allotted two hours of recreation each day for six days a week and two hours of weekly indoor gym recreation. Reynolds may, upon request, receive visits from clergy, attorneys, or prison medical staff. Other than those periods, Reynolds remains isolated with no contact with anyone but the six other inmates on special circumstances status. Although he is allowed social visits with family members, no physical contact is permitted during those visits, which occur through Plexiglass. Reynolds’ conditions of confinement are more restrictive than any other form of incarceration available within the State of Connecticut prison system.”