Pattis should have talked to Fasano before column

I immensely respect Norm Pattis as a litigator and enjoy reading his columns in the New Haven Register.

Norm has a creative legal mind and his writing is usually lucid and thoughtful. Sadly, his column attacking my partner Senate Republican President Len Fasano [McDonald decision not the right one for Connecticut judiciary, March 28] was none of those things.

Instead, his rambling prose simply repeats the falsehoods pushed out by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s press office, with some legalese and an Aristotle quote sprinkled around for effect.

I am not Len’s Senate colleague, so I, like Norm, was not present during the countless hours of research, interviews and hearings that led Len to his decision to oppose Justice Andrew McDonald’s elevation to chief justice. Unlike Norm, I have known Len for 50 years, and for 30 of those years I have practiced law with him. The idea that he would oppose a qualified judicial nominee just to throw around his political weight is laughable.

Len respects an independent judiciary; his stand against McDonald was a principled defense of the balance of power between the branches of government and within the judicial branch itself. Without plunging into the long grass, suffice it for me to agree with my partner that McDonald had developed a disturbing tendency to appropriate powers and prerogatives to the Supreme Court that the Constitution, precedent, and common sense have reserved for the legislature and habeas courts. If Norm believes the legislature should never assert its power to reject a judge, he begs the question: Why even give the people’s representatives a vote on judges? Should we just let the governor, tenured law professors, and the bar association decide for us? That’s not exactly my idea of Taking Back the Courts.

Then there was the troubling matter of McDonald’s involvement with the repeal of the death penalty. In his hearing before the Judiciary Committee, McDonald testified that he never consulted Governor Malloy during the debate over the prospective repeal of the death penalty. This happened in 2012, when McDonald was serving as the governor’s Chief Legal Counsel.

Does anybody really believe that Andrew McDonald, talented lawyer and stalwart opponent of the death penalty, would neglect to advise the Governor, his client, on the constitutionality of the most controversial bill passed that session? For the record, Len never made McDonald’s incredible Judiciary Committee testimony an issue. Instead he gave the justice the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t have been so kind.

I continue to respect Norm as a brilliant lawyer and a talented writer. I just wish he had taken the time to talk to Len before he submitted his column.