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alright good morning everyone
welcome to the Connecticut Supreme Court thank you all for coming
this is our state's highest court
in connecticut we have a three-tiered court system
we have the Superior Court where all of our trials have been
then we have an intermedia appellate court
and then the Supreme Court this is our highest Court
it's also called the court of last resort. this is your last chance to get the
answer you want to whatever
case or question you have. this building is over a hundred years old.
everything that's in here - the Supreme Court,
the State Library, and the Museum of Connecticut history,
used to be housed in the state capitol. around the turn of the last century
because I've overcrowding
they commissioned this building. The architect's name was Donn Barber
and he built this building in the beaux-art
classical style and typical to that style
are all the the big marble
steps coming up to the building the columns the high ceilings
and the reason this building was designed this way
was to show us that important things happen in this room
and in this building.
the groundbreaking happened in 1908
the cornerstone was laid in 1909 in the building opened in 1910
Most of the workers
were Italian immigrants. they were
familiar with this kind of construction, the beaux-art style's not something we see
a lot of here
and so when they were building the building they got a bunch of people
who were familiar with this kind of architecture
and so the Italian immigrants built this building
in about two years without the help with any modern machinery
every one of the seven million granite bricks
was put in place by hand using pulley and lever systems.
all the materials that went into building this building
were brought here on horse-drawn wagons
or anything that was brought from overseas was brought here on ships.
so for 1.4 million dollars
like I said, we have seven million granite bricks,
a lot of marble, the lobby is pink marble from Tennessee,
and the stairways are marble from Genoa and Taberna,
Italy. There's also a lot of gold -
the lamps and chandeliers are gold
and the other major construction material
is the wood. if you guys all notice,
it's all the same color, it's all the same kind of wood, it all comes from our
state tree.
does anyone know our state tree?
yes the white oak tree
so as I said 1.4 million dollars
a hundred years ago to build this building. if we were to do it now
it would cost us over a hundred million dollars and it probably wouldn't be done
in two years
and they would have the use of modern machinery
architect Donn Barber
had two friends that he also got jobs working on this building.
the first one was a man named Francois Tonnetti.
and he was a sculptor and he
did those four figures I don't know if you saw them
out front there are columns
each one was 25 tons and was brought here on horse-drawn wagon from Bari
Vermont
atop those columns we have four figures
and they stand for art science history and justice
now Mr. Tonnetti came into Hartford
and he picked state employees and use them as his model for those
figures
there was a third friend
that got a a job here and he was a painter
by the name of Albert Herder. He was
fairly famous at the time, not someone we know now,
but he had enough pull that
he kinda bartered with the state
and the state, as I said, had already spent $1.4 million on this building
and so they wanted one-piece have artwork to finish
this beautiful room and so they had commissioned
that mural on the back while and the artist,
like I said, he's pretty famous at the time so he put up a fight
he said, "I wanna paint two murals for you"
and the state said "you know we already spent all this money we can't do it
only the one." he said "let me explain to you, let me tell you this story"
and he ended up getting his way and we ended up with two murals.
so the one on the back that had been commissioned as well as the one on the
ceiling
so the one on the back wall that the state had wanted
is called "the fundamental orders 1638 1639"
and what it shows is the men
of our state, colony at the time, coming together to write
our fundamental orders, which were the basis for our Constitution
as well as the US Constitution.
we have some pretty important connecticut figures in this picture
out front, with his hands outstretched, is Thomas ***
he was the lead theologian at the time and
he was the one who gave a sermon. he gave a talk to his friends
to say - we can govern ourselves
we're smart men we can agree on a set
of rules that we're all gonna follow. The rest of the man agreed
and they went on to write our fundamental orders
it actually ended up being the first written set of laws
agreed upon by the men that they were going to govern
we have sitting at the table with his head on his hand
Roger Ludlowe he was the group's Secretary
and the one that we believe actually wrote the orders
at the time in the 1630's he was the only attorney
in the whole colony so we believe he's the one who had to have actually written
the orders
out front holding the scroll in one hand
and his hat in his other hand is John Haynes
he was our state's first governor
so this was the mural that the state had commissioned
and the artist insisted on painting the second one
which is an allegory on education. Does anyone know what an allegory is?
do you know? An allegory
is a story and it uses fictional characters to teach us
about a real theme or idea
and so this one teaches us about education
and it shows a woman who's reading to and teaching a young boy
from the book of knowledge. they're guarded over by the figures of progress and wisdom.
and we have two spirits were passing down the light of learning
which is chasing away ignorance and superstition
those are those two guys down in the the shady area
and the reason that the artist insisted on
painting both the murals was to show that our justices here
make their decisions based on the laws
given to us by men like this, but their understanding
and their interpretation of the laws comes from their education
from all that they've learned from the books that they've read
from their families and their teachers
another piece of artwork that we have in this room
are the portraits of our retired Chief Justices
in connecticut we have a mandatory retirement age
of seventy for all of our judges and justices
and like I said we have those three levels - on the superior court
when judges turn seventy they can continue working
as judge trial referees and they can hear cases
on a per diem basis that means day by day
so not every day but whenever they need to
if the state needs some help they can work
and the appellate, when those judges hit seventy
they can continue on the appellate court or they can return to the Superior Court
and the Supreme Court, once they hit seventy
they can no longer hear cases here they can hear cases
on the appellate court or on the Superior Court
so as you can see we have seven justices
on this court, the one who sits in that middle chair is our chief justice
and when the Chief Justice hits seventy here she gets a portrait commissioned
and it gets hung in this room. we have
two important portraits that I want to point out
up top here is justice Raymond Balwin
if you had gone into the museum, the Museum is actually
named after him.
he's the only person in our state's history to have been
governor, chief justice, and senator
so he held high-ranking positions in all three branches of government
I also like to point out Chief Justice Peters over here by the clock
she was our state's first female Chief Justice
and she was appointed by our first female governor
who was Ella Grasso.
now there's something else interesting about Chief Justice Peters
she was not a judge
on a lower court before being appointed here
she was a professor, she taught law
at Yale Law School and was considered to be so brilliant
that she didn't need the experience
of working on the trial court she already knew the law.
and so she could come here and do a good job and she did
and currently we have our second female Chief Justice, Chief Justice
Rogers and she was appointed by our second female governor
Jodi Rell. Now chief justice Rogers
she's got some time under her belt she's been here since 2007
and she will be here until I believe
2026 and then when she retires
her portrait will be painted and it'll be hung in this position over here where
chief justice Sullivan is.
every single one of these portraits will get moved
one spot to the left. Chief Justice wine over here will be removed from the wall
and hung somewhere else in the building.
so another interesting feature about this room,
you'll notice is that we have our state seal
on almost everything in the room. it's on
the back of these chairs in the front
its on all of the paneling, it's on
the rug, we have it of course on our flag
and on the murals. So our seal
has our state motto - "qui transtulit sustinet"
which is latin and means "he who transplanted still sustains"
we were told many years ago by a state librarian
that the reason that's our state motto home
is that it's an interpretation of
psalm 80, I believe, from the Bible
which said he who has transplanted the vines out of Egypt
so the idea is that the colonists, the people who settled here,
were religious people and they believe that God
had given them the impetus to move here
and that he would continue to sustain them
which means they would continue to live and thrive
once they got here. Now we have three grapevines
on the seal and those three grapevines stand for our first
three towns. Do you guys know what those are?
Wethersfield, Windsor
How about my girls in the back? Any ideas? one more
all right, we're in the last one, Hartford
alright, well,
those grapevines stand for the first three towns
and they're also used because that psalm talks about the vines,
they are a native plant they would have been here when the colonists first got
here,
they could have eaten those grapes and used them to sustain themselves,
and they're also a plant that can be transplanted
so you can't do this with everything but with grapevines you can dig them up
plant them somewhere else and if you have some light and water they will continue
to grow.
Lastly, we'll talk about all the doors that are in this room.
so our courts in Connecticut are open to the public
you guys are sitting in the public seating section
anytime that the court is in session the residents of Connecticut
or anyone else could come in, sit in those seats, and watch the arguments
you all came in through the public entrance way,
and there's two other doors in the room. this door over here
leads out to our attorney conference room.
so when the attorneys arguing a case are here
they can go into that room get themselves ready for their arguments for
the day
go over any last-minute adjustments they need to make, things like that.
and then we have the justices door in the back
so the justices come in and out of that door
and they do everything based on seniority
so Chief Justice comes out first and she sits right in that middle seat
and then from her right to her left alternating out
the most senior justices sit closest to her, the ones who've been here the
longest.
and the newest justices sit farthest away
and so then when they're finished they'll go back out through that door
and they take a vote. Now, they do this by seniority as well
the newest justices, the ones who been here
the least amount of time, vote first.
and then the Chief Justice votes last
now her vote's not worth any more than anyone else's,
all seven justices have the same weight to their vote
but she gets to assign homework - she's the one who decides
which person in the majority is going to write the opinion,
which is going to tell everyone which side was the winner
what side they agreed with. Now they hear cases here
in the months that kids are in school
they start in September and they finish up in May.
they hear cases for two weeks and then they have a three week break
where they're reading, writing, researching,
finishing up things that they had heard in the previous term
in getting ready for everything they're gonna hear in the next term
so they're on two weeks of three weeks from September to May
They take June and July to try and finish up
any loose ends that they have - write any opinions that are left,
and then they take August off. That's really their chance to get vacation.
When our chief justice came, she had decided
they were going to start hearing cases on banc
which means in a panel of of seven of them
previously they when they had heard cases, sometimes only five would hear them,
and only the very most serious cases
got all seven, but they had decided that
when they speak with the voice of the court
that it was only fair to have all seven present whenever they could.
now this kind of takes away the opportunity for an attorney to say
well we got the luck of the draw.
if we had a different day we could have gone a different answer.
Now what happens here is not a trial
like you guys would see on TV and
there's not a criminal defendant standing in shackles.
They argue matters of law here
so a trial has already happened and
one side thinks that something didn't go all right,
there was a mistake and perhaps the judge
didn't give the right instructions to a jury before they made their decision,
or a police officer should have
read someone their rights right away
and they waited until after that person started talking
those kind of errors in law are what get brought here
and there are some cases that come here automatically.
if a criminal defendant gets
twenty years or more in prison that case comes here
right away as soon as it's appealed - that does not go to the intermediate court.
and cases of election law
come here right away. Cases of laws that have not previously been decided
come here right away otherwise they have what's called discretion
they can decide if they want to hear a case
or if they're gonna send it the appellate court and have them start with
that.
You guys have any questions now?
the last case that was heard here? I don't know.
they hear about a hundred forty cases a year.
they hear them, like I said, those two weeks and they hear about two cases
every morning. the cases are hour-long
arguments and each side gets thirty minutes
If you guys a look at that podium, it is normally
out front in the middle of this table
and there's lights on top of it. the arguments are timed
they last exactly one hour. there's
a white light that goes on when you're 30 minutes is started,
a yellow light goes on to warn you when you have two minutes left,
and then a red light will go on and warn you that your time is up
there's also a digital clock
that time that ticks down.
if you're in the middle the sentence you can ask
the Chief Justice "your honor may I please
finish my sentence" she can let you finish, or not
at the US Supreme Court you don't have that option.
if your time ends and you're in the middle of a sentence
you're outta luck. here they're a little more flexible with that
So during the hour
that your allotted, really the justices consider it to be
their time not the attorneys time.
they've already filed what's called briefs so they've already presented
their arguments
the justices have read them. they know what's going to be presented
and so the justices use this time to clarify any questions that they might
have. And so someone's up there giving
his or her 30-minute presentation
maybe they've just started or they're really on a roll and
they're really getting into it and then the justices
interrupt and ask them a question. They need to stop,
answer the question, and be able to pick right up where they left off
so the attorneys who come here
are very well practiced, they know what they're doing
and any last minute nerves that they had they shook off,
lost them, left them in the attorney conference room.
and so when they're here they really have to know
their arguments inside and out. they can cite cases
and there's a thing called precedent
which means that if the case had previously been
heard and ruled on the justices have to follow that
have to keep their answer the same and so
an attorney who's here can say you should agree with my argument
because you agreed with attorney Browns argument in 1994
and our arguments are the same. If you guys see all those books up front
those are all published opinions
and so the justices can have one of their clerks
open up one of those books find the case that's being cited
and look at it and say yes you're right we agreed with brown
therefore we must agree with you
and so those books
are the tan books with the red and black ribbons
there's also blue books out there, which
you probably can't tell from here they're not hard bound
those are the special acts passed by the legislature.
and so those are constantly changing and those are kept here to make sure that
the justices are following
the most recent up-to-date version of the law
we have questions? "what's the most famous
case that's been heard here?"
actually we have the
national park system is coming in August,
we had Griswold vs. Connecticut, which
and I wish I knew more about this now
Griswold vs. Connecticut
was a birth control issue
and Planned Parenthood had taken part in it
and this court ruled on it, they also
ruled on same-sex marriage
they ruled in favor of it before our US Supreme Court did.
I think the last case from this court
that ended up at our US Supreme Court
was Kelo vs. New London. That was an eminent domain case that was in 2005 I
believe
and so there have been
some landmark decisions in Connecticut.
So do you guys have you heard
of the idea of being admitted to the bar?
so after you go
to college for four years if you wanna be a lawyer
you have to go to law school for three years and then you take what's called
the bar exam
it's a very difficult test you have to study for a long time
and once you pass the bar exam you're considered an attorney
and that allows you to pass the bar in a courtroom.
And this piece of wood that runs
all across the room you'll see that
in any courtroom and that's the bar.
and it separates the attorneys in the case
from the general public. so once you've passed the bar exam
you can physically pass the bar in a court.
"you said the public could sit here
during any case, do you have to get
reservation?" you don't it's open to the public.
we can fit I think about a hundred people in here
in
general, unless it's something really contentious
generally don't have to worry about getting a seat.
and all of our cases
in Connecticut, with the exception of juvenile cases
and family cases, are open to the public
where did you guys come here from today ?
Okay, so,
in Rocky Hill, your local courthouse is New Britain.
so anytime there is something going on
the lawsuit about
the nursing home
just took place actually in Hartford and New Britain and
that was open to the public you guys can go to any
hearing and it's the same here
it's open to the public. The last case that really
filled the room was, there were a couple
um that one filled the room, but
we had a case of
two inmates who had been sentenced,
well first they were sentenced to death and then they were sentenced to life
and they appealed their conviction here
and their names were Taylor and Gould and
there, the main witness against them
changed her mind - she decided she thought she had seen them but really she never
did
and so that was a big case.
And one of the men was had stage four cancer
and so it was very important that the justices
decide, and decide quickly, because these men's lives
where at stake and that filled the courtroom pretty well.
and I said election law comes here automatically - there was case a couple years
ago with Susan Bysiewicz.
where she wanted to run for attorney general
and someone said you don't have the qualifications for that
and they came and argued that here and that was pretty well filled.
and she had, as you guys see, we have chairs
in front of the bar so we have two sets of chairs
generally any argument that happens has
two attorneys for either side you can bring more
I don't think I've ever seen anyone just do stand by him or herself
and generally it's two at a time
but any other parties associated with the case
would be able to come and sit up here if they were attorneys
so when Susan Bysiewicz was here it was the only time I ever saw I think
every single one of these chairs was filled because she had a whole group
of fellow politicians and
attorneys with her
anything else? "I see the camera here,
so you videotape these?"
Certain meetings as well as
certain cases are videotaped and that's at all levels
and we recently
opened a pilot program which allows
cameras into our criminal court
to videotape proceedings and
there are restrictions on it where as
as members of the public you guys could go into
any criminal case in the state. when
there is a matter of a camera, they may not go into any
case -any *** assaults,
we don't allow cameras in for
and any case involving
what's called the youthful offender, someone who
may end up having his or her record cleaned,
we don't allow cameras in for that and
so there are some restrictions again
that's the judge's discretion so sometimes there's a case where
its a kidnapping of a child
and one judge will say yes the cameras can come in
another judge may decide it's not okay
and but the media has to request
to have a camera in place. there certain rules that they have to follow
and they cannot take pictures or videos
of the general public so if you came to watch a case that day
if you were a friend of someone,
or just lived in the community, you would not be able to be video taped
there's certain things that we don't allow like
if a defendant is in shackles
and leg irons if they're in hand
handcuffs we try to not get those things
taped because it makes you look guilty
it prejudices the
the pool against you, so there are certain rules on what they can do.
but the court has made efforts to be transparent
to do everything in the view of the public so that
for anyone who doesn't come to court they still have the opportunity to see
what's gone on that day
well if you guys don't have any more questions
thank you so much for coming I hope you enjoy the rest your day