Elicker Declines To Comment On Morant-Trial Defense

by Mona Mahadevan The New Haven independent

Mayor Justin Elicker on Tuesday declined to comment on New Haven’s legal approach in an ongoing wrongful-conviction trial — in which a lawyer representing the city has argued that former Det. Vincent Raucci did not frame Scott Lewis and Stefon Morant for a 1990 double murder.

Even though the state has awarded Morant $5.84 million for a wrongful conviction claim.

Even though the city itself, under former Mayor Toni Harp, paid Lewis $9.5 million in a settlement over Lewis’s wrongful conviction.

And even though the FBI compiled a report of numerous allegations that Raucci coerced witnesses to testify against Morant and Lewis. 

“I can’t make comments on a specific case,” Elicker said, referring to the ongoing civil rights trial brought by Morant against the City of New Haven and six former detectives. “We generally don’t do that because the case is ongoing.”

In federal district court, the attorney representing the City of New Haven, Thomas Gerarde, made clear in opening arguments that he believes the defense will show that “nothing improper happened. Raucci didn’t do anything other than normal questions or answers. Zero of that.”

While Elicker has declined to comment on the Morant case, he has spoken publicly in the past on pending legal matters and cases where the city faced potential liability.

Soon after a 36-year-old New Havener named Randy Cox suffered paralyzing injuries in police custody in June 2022 — but before Cox filed a lawsuit against the city — the mayor held a press conference to describe some officers’ actions as “concerning.” In February of this year, after state police arrested former city Police Chief Karl Jacobson for allegedly stealing city funds, Elicker said Jacobson “must be held accountable.” Two months later, when the Trump administration sued the city in a bid to overturn policies that limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, Elicker said the lawsuit “contains inaccuracies and untruths.”

In the case of Morant’s wrongful-conviction claims against the city — which are currently being litigated in front of a jury in Hartford — Elicker has declined to comment.

He did, however, reject the characterization that going to trial marks a reversal of the city’s position from 2017, when the Harp administration settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit with Lewis.

Elicker argued that the two lawsuits — though focused on the same investigation and detectives — are separate.

“It’s important to not make a comparison to another case, because each case is different,” Elicker said. “Oftentimes, both parties want to reach a settlement agreement, but sometimes different parties have very different expectations as to what’s an appropriate settlement agreement.”

“From the outside, looking at any court case, there’s a lot of information that people – including the press – don’t have,” he continued. “They shouldn’t be making judgments without having full information.”

The mayor said he is unable to disclose anything more about the settlement discussions, including the amount requested by Morant.

When asked about some of the specific allegations against Det. Raucci — specifically, over a former FBI analyst’s finding that at least 30 moments were missing from the audio record of three interviews conducted by Raucci in this case — Elicker said he could not comment.

“What I can say is that…I have a lot of influence over what our police department does today,” said Elicker, who first became mayor in 2020. “We work very hard to ensure that there’s accountability across the board and have shown that, even when it comes to the police chief himself, we make choices to keep them accountable.”