By Donald Connery
August 13, 2007
Once again, Connecticut justice is on trial.
Eight years ago, I was outraged at what our Constitution State did to David
Saraceno in a notorious "wrong man" case. In a 10-hour unrecorded interrogation
in 1994, detectives forced the teenager to falsely confess to the $500,000
burning of the Haddam-Killingworth school bus fleet. He went to prison. When the
identity of the four real arsonists surfaced, embarrassed prosecutors gave them
a free pass. David was set free, but only on the condition that he plead guilty
to "hindering prosecution by falsely confessing to the state police."
That was bad enough, but now my blood is really boiling.
In mid-July, I attended Richard Lapointe's hearing for a new trial in Rockville
Superior Court. No forensic evidence had ever linked him to the murder of
Bernice Martin two decades earlier. I knew this to be Connecticut's most
shameful false confession case ever because of the accused's numerous mental and
physical disabilities. The state had sought the death penalty and left a killer
on the loose.
I fully expected the outcome to lead to freedom for the 61-year-old Manchester
man. He has been locked up exactly as long as the 18 years endured by the
recently exonerated James Calvin Tillman. Instead, I was an eyewitness to yet
another justice system farce.
I heard Judge Stanley T. Fuger proclaim, "I don't know anything about this
case." Worse, he seemed determined not to know anything. He told the lawyers at
the beginning that he would read no briefs at the end. He refused to look at a
just-arrived DNA report favorable to Lapointe. After just three days of
testimony, he abruptly announced that he had heard enough.
Three of the 16 pages of his ruling denying a new trial complain that the
petitioner's attorneys had wasted the court's time. Yet Judge Fuger, like the
Lapointe supporters who packed the courtroom, had been exposed to several hours
of high drama that went to the heart of the long injustice.
On July 4, 1989, as her husband was being subjected to nearly 10 hours of
unrecorded interrogation-room badgering, Karen Lapointe, at home, suffered her
own torment by a detective using threats and falsehoods to pressure her to
change her story.
Even when told that her child might be taken away as a ward of the state if she
failed to cooperate, she clung to her truth about Richard's activities on the
day of the murder. She was certain there was never time enough, or reason
enough, for him to rape and kill her grandmother and set her apartment on fire.
The cops surreptitiously recorded that exchange. But the jury that convicted
Lapointe heard neither the tape nor testimony by Karen. Now, in 2007, Judge
Fuger, leaning far back in his chair with his eyes closed, listened to the full
recording. So did Karen, seated nearby and weeping throughout. She testified
that it was the truth then and it's the truth now. The judge was unmoved.
I almost feel sorry for Judge Fuger. Almost. He could have been a hero. Instead,
to justify keeping Lapointe behind bars, he clung to the narrowest possible
interpretation of the legal language making the overturning of a conviction a
high hurdle.
The contrast with Judge John A. Speziale's actions in the famous Peter Reilly
case could not possibly be more starkly etched.
The Falls Village 18-year-old, accused of murdering his mother, had been
convicted in Speziale's Litchfield courtroom in 1974 because of his confession,
not evidence. In the hearing for a new trial two years later, when the judge
heard what the jury never heard - a cogent explanation of why a highly
susceptible personality would falsely confess - he declared that a "grave
injustice" had occurred.
As a matter of conscience, the judge did so by stretching the interpretation of
"newly discovered evidence" to its outer limits. Reilly went on to freedom.
Speziale went on to become Connecticut's chief justice.
But those were the good old days.
Donald S. Connery of Kent has written about the criminal justice system for
nearly 30 years, focusing largely on false and coerced confessions. is on the
advisory boards of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School
and the National Center for Reason and Justice, based in Boston.