The Connecticut Supreme Court has shot down an appeal by a former death row inmate who argued that the state should have been forced to pay for a private defense lawyer of his choosing at his murder trial.
In 1997, suspected drug dealer Russell Peeler Jr. was convicted of killing of Rudolph Snead in Bridgeport in an apparent dispute over drug sale proceeds. In 1999, the conviction was overturned and Peeler was retried and convicted again. He’s challenging that second conviction on the grounds that the state denied him the lawyer of his choosing.
