Connecticut Post Online
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
by Marian Gail Brown
BRIDGEPORT, Ct — Russell Peeler stood up for his right to counsel during the first day of jury selection Monday for a panel that will determine whether he dies of natural causes in prison or by lethal injection.
Peeler was convicted of two counts of felony capital murder in connection with the January 1999 slayings of Karen Clarke and B.J. Brown, her 8-year-old son.
During a brief recess in the proceedings, Peeler, whose legs were shackled, stepped into a side room to speak with one of his lawyers, Mark Rademacher, who closed the door. Court marshals knocked on the door and informed them that they could not consult there because it was an “unsecured area.”
The room, about the size of a couple of office cubicles, had only one exit, a door that opens into the courtroom, 5A.
Peeler countered that he needed to talk to his lawyer. “I have a right to speak to him without you being in the room.”
Nevertheless, he emerged seconds later with Rademacher. “Hold up, man. The room is set up right there. The sheriffs keep on making an issue of this,” he told his two other attorneys, Jeffrey Beck and Erskine McIntosh.
“Talk to the judge,” he told the court officers. “I’m ticked off. This is why you need privacy.”
Word of the dispute reached Superior Court Judge Jonathan Blue, who is overseeing the trial, when he emerged from his chambers. With attorneys in one room, prospective jurors in another, Blue called the court marshals into a third chamber to hear their side of the story.
“This is what’s known as shuttle diplomacy around here,” Blue remarked as he stepped from one room to the other.
A Connecticut Department of Correction officer said that there was a dispute between the state corrections officers and court marshals over who was responsible for Peeler once he reached Superior Court in Bridgeport.
“Once we are in the courthouse, then the inmate is in the marshals’ custody,” said the corrections officer, adding that court marshals would have been responsible if there were an escape.
Peeler “wanted none of us in that room,” the corrections officer said. “The judge was asked and agreed with the inmate.”
The next time Peeler and his lawyers went into the anteroom to talk, court marshals put up no resistance. They did, however, station themselves outside the door. Court marshals refused to comment on the dispute, saying they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Altogether, 35 prospective jurors were summoned to the courthouse. None knew ahead of time that the case he or she might decide dealt with the death penalty.
“The most important quality of a juror is the willingness to listen to the evidence with an open mind,” Blue told the jurors as they awaited their turn to be questioned about their knowledge of the case, their backgrounds and feelings about the death penalty.
By the end of the first day, their ranks had been trimmed to 10 potential jurors. Blue excused 23, while the prosecution exercised one of its 34 challenges to keep a Quinnipiac University graduate who works for a survey company off the panel.
The 22-year-old woman told the attorneys that she had never given much thought one way or another to the imposition of the death penalty. But as she considered the subject now, she said, her feeling was that it could only be considered on a “case-by-case” basis.
Meanwhile, another woman asked to leave the courtroom earlier in the day, within minutes of the start of State Attorney Jonathan Benedict’s opening comments. She returned informing Blue that she had a “stomach virus” and felt sick. Immediately, prospective jurors seated close moved as far from her as they could get. Blue looked at the pallor of her skin and instructed her to leave. The jurors, who will number 12 with four alternates, will determine what Peeler’s ultimate punishment will be. They will hear evidence, starting in mid-September in what is expected to be a two-month trial. Essentially, they will have to weigh aggravating factors against mitigating ones to determine whether his sentence is life in prison or the death penalty.