Connecticut’s Criminal Justice Commission voted Tuesday to appoint Judge Eliot Prescott to be the state’s next inspector general, tasked with investigating when people die in custody and deciding if police officers should be criminally charged for killing people while in the line of duty.
The commission spent nearly all day Tuesday interviewing five finalists for the position before selecting Prescott for the job.
Prescott, who is currently serving as a senior judge for the Connecticut Appellate Court, beat out an experienced field of candidates with extensive histories as prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges.
The other four finalists who were interviewed included Leonard Crone, a defense attorney from Waterbury; State Superior Court Judge Kevin Randolph; Superior Court Judge Kevin Russo; and Herman Woodard Jr., a defense attorney from Windsor.
The lengthy interview process is evidence of the weight placed on the inspector general’s office, which was created by state lawmakers in 2020 to make the process of investigating police shootings more transparent and independent.
Prescott called the 2020 bill that created the inspector general’s office a “critical and wise piece of legislation.”
But the questions posed by members of the criminal justice commission highlighted how difficult the job will be for Prescott as he takes over the role from Robert Devlin, who served as the first inspector general in the state’s history.
Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald, who chairs the commission, warned each candidate that there were more than 20 pending investigations into police shootings and prison deaths that would need to be resolved by the next inspector general.
“If you take this role, you would essentially be jumping onto a moving train,” McDonald said.
The commissioners also warned Prescott and the other finalists that the role of inspector general was a “difficult and thankless” position.
The duties of the office often place the inspector general directly between law enforcement officers and the family members of people who are killed by police.
After reviewing body camera footage and interviewing officers and other witnesses, the inspector general decides whether a police officer was justified in killing someone or whether they should be criminally charged for their actions.
Devlin, who will retire at the end of June, reviewed dozens of cases of police shootings and prison deaths during his tenure as inspector general, producing detailed reports about each case.
And he used his powers to bring criminal charges against one officer, State Trooper Brian North, who shot and killed 19-year-old Mubarak Soulemane in 2020.
North was acquitted by a jury after a week-long criminal trial, but the case still created animosity toward the inspector general’s office from police officers and their unions. And that tension seems to have continued.
Scott Murphy, another member of the criminal justice commission, said one union official recently sent a letter to the commission raising concerns that the next inspector general would open “witch hunts” against police officers in the state.
The commissioners asked Prescott whether he would be able to fairly perform the job while facing public pressure from both police and members of the community who believe individual officers should be charged for their actions.
They also peppered him with questions about whether he’d ever handled a trial where media was in the courtroom. They asked whether he believed in systemic racism. They probed what he would do in situations when police officers didn’t turn on their body cameras during a shooting. And they asked how he would build trust in communities with significant distrust in the legal and criminal justice systems
Prescott told the commission that he was ready to assume the role and all of the pressures that came with it. And he said his experience as a judge had prepared him to make difficult and, sometimes, unpopular decisions.
“I’ve made unpopular decisions on the bench,” said Prescott, who cited an court order in 2013 that released the 911 calls from the Sandy Hook school shooting.
