Re: 6/24/00 - State to get killer?s award
State to get killer?s award
By Natasha Gural, Associated Press Writer
June 24, 2000
HARTFORD ? The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state is entitled to nearly $900,000 that a convicted murderer had won in a false arrest case involving New Haven police.
Eric Ham was awarded $930,000 in 1996 after he sued two New Haven police officers for false arrest in a 1991 murder case. He is now serving a 50-year prison sentence for another murder.
In a 5-0 ruling, the high court said that the state should get more than $898,000 from Ham?s award for estimated costs of Ham?s incarceration from Oct. 1, 1997, through January 2022, the date he would first be eligible for parole.
"The defendant?s argument that the state?s claim against him for the costs of incarceration is not ?due and owing? is simply misdirected," the justices wrote in a four-page ruling. "That doctrine applies, not to the state?s claim that is the subject of this lawsuit, but to the obligation of the city of New Haven to the defendant, which is due and owing."
After the high court last year upheld Ham?s cash award, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed a lawsuit under a statute that allows the state to sue inmates for the costs of their incarceration.
"We are pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld our power to assure that money is available for convicted criminals to pay their debt to the state as well as society," Blumenthal said.
"This order stops the city of New Haven from paying Ham while the state?s effort to collect the money is pending. We will continue to pursue vigorously, as much as possible, this award to compensate taxpayers for the cost of keeping in prison this convicted criminal."
Ham?s lawyer, William Palmieri, could not be reached for comment Friday. A message was left at his New Haven office.
The state filed the lawsuit shortly after the Supreme Court affirmed a jury?s finding that the officers should have included information in an arrest warrant affidavit that could have cast doubt on Ham?s guilt.
Ham was arrested and jailed for three months in the January 1991 drive-by shooting that killed Markeist Alexander. The charges were later dropped.
Ham then sued the primary detective in the case, Joseph Greene, and his supervisor, Michael Sweeney, for false arrest, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Martin Echter, a lawyer for the police officers, had told the court that police arrested Ham on the strength of two eyewitness accounts ? a 17-year-old man who said he was driving the car the shooter rode in to kill Alexander and another man who was nearby.
Palmieri said police did not include in the affidavit numerous other eyewitness accounts that said the shooter was a stocky, dark-skinned black man about 5 feet 7 inches tall. Ham has a light complexion, is about 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed about 155 pounds at the time of the killing, Palmieri said.
Ham is now serving a 50-year sentence for the drive-by shooting of Marilyn Vega in New Haven.
He was convicted in April 1997.
¸New Haven Register 2000
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