GOP lines up against McDonald

Target death penalty conflicts in hearing on chief justice nomination

HARTFORD — Supreme Court Justice Andrew J. McDonald faced critical questions Monday from Republican lawmakers who focused on his support for repealing the death penalty.

Even before the daylong hearing began, several GOP members of the judiciary committee announced they would oppose McDonald’s nomination to be the next Supreme Court chief justice, replacing the retired Chase T. Rogers.

McDonald defended his right to first speak against the death penalty in 2009, when the bill was vetoed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell and he was a state senator from Stamford. Later, during his five years on the high court, McDonald participated in the decision that led to the expansion of the repeal to cover those men on Death Row whose sentences were subsequently amended to life-in-prison.

“You were pretty emphatic, pretty clear in making a statement of broad opposition to the death penalty and its value and workability and so forth,” recalled veteran Rep. Arthur J. O’Neill, R-Southbury.

“Members of the committee are not members of the Supreme Court,” said McDonald, 51, stressing that he had no grounds to recuse himself from the capital punishment issue after he joined the court.

He said that he stepped away from participating in about 80 other cases while on the Supreme Court because of conflicts.

“Every judge, just like every legislator, has to make an individualized determination about the ethical decisions he has to make,” McDonald said. “We are only having this discussion because of the heightened profile of this particular case.”

In 2012, the General Assembly ended the death penalty for future crimes, but Death Row inmates were not included. A later high court ruling led to resentencing those inmates, who will spend their lives behind bars. “This legislature does not appoint judges to shy away from hard cases or difficult decisions,” McDonald said.

O’Neill also focused on McDonald’s longtime friendship with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, whose relationship with the General Assembly has occasionally been rocky or in conflict. McDonald’s friendship with Malloy goes back 25 years, but when they get together, legislative and court issues are carefully skirted. “He respects my role and I respect his,” McDonald said.

If approved by the committee later on Monday, he still has to win votes in the House and Senate. The Democratic majority in the House is 79-71, pending a special election in Stratford on Tuesday. The Senate is tied at 18, with Democratic Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman there as a potential tie-breaker.

Lawmakers calling themselves the conservative caucus, including Rep. Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, deputy House minority leader, said they would oppose McDonald — who joined the court in January 2013 — because of a lack of experience on the bench. The group made the announcement in a statement just before the start of the hearing.

But opposition extends to political, social and philosophical opposition to McDonald, a former legal adviser to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy who, if approved, would become the nation’s first openly gay chief justice.

In a statement from the conservatives, McDonald was criticized for his role in the judicial repeal of the death penalty “and other potential overreach” on the seven-member court. In testimony presented to the committee, Peter Wolfgang, president of the conservative Family Institute of Connecticut, which in recent years opposed legislation expanding LGBT rights, opposed McDonald’s nomination.

“Justice Andrew McDonald should not be confirmed for chief justice because he has a history of putting his own politics above the law,” Wolfgang wrote.

Lawmakers also singled out a 2009 event in which McDonald, then the Judiciary Committee’s Senate cochairman, scheduled a public hearing on a proposal that would have changed incorporation law for churches. The issue was prompted by cases of embezzlement in Roman Catholic churches in Greenwich and Darien.

The hearing began shortly after 10 o’clock, with McDonald reading a prepared statement to the committee for 12 minutes, stressing “that it would be the honor of my professional life” is he is confirmed. He said that he has written over 100 cases, and that he is now the second-senior member on the court. He said he prepared to supervise the Judicial Branch.

“There was never a plan to become a judge,” McDonald admitted.

About 120 people attended the hearing — including Charles Gray, McDonald’s husband — held in a second-floor meeting room in the Legislative Office Building that was about threequarters full.

McDonald proposed upgrading security in courts throughout the state, and focused on updating the heavy caseloads in New Haven and Bridgeport, particularly the 19th century Golden Hill Street courthouse in Bridgeport. He argued that a shortage of judicial marshals represents a threat to courts throughout the state.

McDonald