The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
⏩ Pattis: Dulos murder trial should move forward,
STAMFORD — Fotis Dulos may have died, but his defense attorney is arguing that the fight to clear his late client’s name should still live on.
Just hours after Dulos died from an apparent suicide, Norm Pattis filed a motion to move forward with the murder trial against his client’s estate.
“Mr. Dulos’ right to confront these charges and to assert his innocence does not die with him,” Pattis wrote. “The court should afford his estate an opportunity to clear his name.”
Dulos died at 5:32 p.m. Thursday at Jacobi Medical Center in New York after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning from an apparent suicide attempt in the garage of his Farmington home on Tuesday.
Dulos, 52, faced charges of murder, felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution in the May 24 death and disappearance of his estranged wife, Jennifer Dulos.
Substituting Fotis Dulos’ estate as the defendant in the case is a move that some of Pattis’ colleagues are calling a long shot.
“There’s no precedent that I’m aware of for this. So as creative as Mr. Pattis is — and he is that — he’s going to have a tough hill to climb,” said Chris Morano, who served as Connecticut’s chief state’s attorney until 2006.
One problem that Pattis could run into is the issue of jurisdiction.
“The court can only rule on things if they have jurisdiction over the person. They had jurisdiction over the person, Mr. Dulos, when he was alive. But, now that he’s deceased, that jurisdiction is gone,” Morano said.
In his motion, Pattis cited the cases of Henry Plummer, an American prospector who was acquitted of crimes more than 120 years after he was hung, and Joan of Arc as examples when a posthumous trial was required to clear defendants. But comparing those cases to that of
Dulos is apples to oranges, according to Morano.
“Those cases are different, even if Connecticut law was to examine this, both of those people had been killed by some unjust judicial force,” Morano said.
Mark Sherman, a criminal defense attorney in Stamford, went a step further and said there is “no way” the motion is granted.
“It’s just not a practical solution,” Sherman said. “It’s costly to the state, it’s a waste of government resources and there’s two other defendants on trial for this murder that the state has to consider as well.”
In cases where a defendant dies during proceedings, Sherman said a defense lawyer would typically seek to dismiss the charges and the state would move to nolle the case.
But Pattis claims Dulos deserves to have his name cleared, even in death, to defend his reputation and for the sake of his five children.
“Mr. Dulos’ children should not be subjected to a lifetime of coping with a fictional reality that their father murdered their mother in cold blood on the basis of baseless and rampant speculation,” Pattis said. “They deserve answers achieved through just processes even if those just answers do not satisfy the public’s bloodlust for tabloid fodder.”
On the day of his apparent suicide, Dulos had been scheduled for an emergency bond hearing after Palmetto Surety Corp., the company backing his $6 million bond, expressed concerns over his collateral.
Before his apparent suicide attempt, Dulos left a note at his Farmington home proclaiming his innocence in the death and disappearance of his estranged wife, according to Pattis’ motion.
Pattis had waived his client’s right to a probable cause hearing and Dulos was set to go to trial as soon as September.
His former girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, and attorney Kent Mawhinney still face charges of conspiracy to commit murder. Troconis, 45, has also been charged with tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution.
According to arrest warrants, Jennifer Dulos was last seen on a neighbor’s security camera at 8:05 a.m. May 24, returning to her New Canaan home after dropping off her children at a nearby school.
Police believe Fotis Dulos was “lying in wait” and attacked her in the garage, the warrants indicate.
Fotis Dulos and Troconis were caught on video that night in Hartford dumping bags that were later determined to contain Jennifer Dulos’ blood and clothing, according to arrest warrants.
Jennifer Dulos’ blood was also found on the seat of a pickup truck belonging to an employee of Fotis Dulos, according to arrest warrants. Police say Fotis Dulos used the truck on the day his wife was killed, arrest warrants said.