Last week, as reported by the Connecticut Law Tribune, Chief Justice Richard Robinson of the Connecticut Supreme Court authored a thoughtful and inspiring letter offering his perspective on racial injustice following recent events across the country. The chief justice cited the need "for real and immediate improvement" of an inequitable justice system that disparately impacts "the most vulnerable" among us. Former state Undersecretary for Criminal Justice Policy Mike Lawlor, in an op-ed in The Hartford Courant, offered three fine suggestions for criminal justice reform for the judicial branch's consideration in light of Robinson's statement, including vacating certain rearrest orders, substantially reducing bail and mandating prosecutorial review before cases are docketed.

As a civil rights and criminal defense practitioner in Connecticut, I propose an even simpler measure that can be implemented immediately and at no cost, yet help gain traction toward the goal of improving an already lopsided system while more comprehensive reform takes shape: It's time to grant all criminal defendants the right to waive all nonessential appearances before the court when represented by counsel.

This small, commonsense suggestion that I offer is already embraced by the Practice Book in Section 44-10, and would have an instant impact on improving the broken misdemeanor and nonviolent felony system that UC-Irvine law professor Alexandra Natapoff calls "assembly line justice." As Natapoff noted in an interview with NPR, the system "often goes after low-income and impoverished individuals. It sweeps in people of color, often disproportionately, for order maintenance and other low-level offenses." The most absurd relic of this broken system is the requirement that criminal defendants appear in person for each and every single court date.

In criminal court, the most contentious cases can take up to two years or more to resolve. During that period of time, information is exchanged between the parties, negotiations take place, and sometimes judges become involved as mediators to expedite matters. Most defendants will say they never saw or heard any of it. Those same defendants will say they appeared for court on time and stood around in an uncomfortable courthouse for hours, only to be sent home with a new court date, where the process would repeat itself again the following month. It is unclear to me what the benefit is to such a requirement, given that any concerns about the defendant's ability to appear when required in court would have been addressed at the arraignment hearing.

This unnecessary requirement, however, bears serious consequences. First, it is inefficient and dramatically slows down proceedings. Every morning in each courthouse, beginning at around 8 a.m., judicial marshals process hundreds of bodies through security, including defendants, their family and associates, lawyers and members of the general public. Those same defendants are called before a judge one after another, many of whom are simply told they will need to return at a later date. As a result, the average day in a courthouse is long for lawyers, judges, staff and citizens.

Second, in a post-pandemic world, this is dangerous. Many courthouses in the state are small, with lobbies that squeeze dozens of people together in confined spaces. Lawyers talk with other lawyers, then with clients, then with staff and court personnel while handling physical documents and touching doors, railings and other surfaces, increasing the likelihood of exchanging germs and for everyone to become sick by simply being in a courthouse.

Finally, and most importantly, the system is unduly burdensome for the criminally accused. Every court appearance is another request for time off from work, to arrange for child care or to find someone to help with transportation. Unfortunately, most criminal defendants are people of color who face serious socioeconomic challenges. This onerous obligation only causes more frustration for the people we serve in an already frustrating court process. It feels like punishment without a conviction.

Prosecutors, judges, public defenders, court staff and private counsel consider the courthouse to be either a main or satellite office. To each defendant, however, every court date is another need to pause everything else in their lives and deal with the seemingly ill-advised decision to maintain their claim of innocence or, at least, to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to a defense. Given this phenomenon, it's not surprising that the National Registry of Exonerations concludes that 15% of all individuals exonerated post-conviction were convicted because they chose to plead guilty instead of going to trial. Some defendants just get tired. They give up.

To be clear, I write this opinion only to addresses the archaic and unnecessary expectation that criminal defendants appear at every single scheduled court date. The criminal justice system in Connecticut has several other issues that can be improved, among which include the following:

• Systemic overcharging of crimes for the purpose of exploiting the imbalance of power during plea bargaining, resulting in forced guilty pleas.

• The unwavering belief that police officers are telling the truth, resulting in an embarrassing imbalance of denied suppression motions, rubber-stamped arrest and search warrants, upheld probable cause determinations and unfair case valuation. (Why, in the age of Breonna Taylor, do we default to police telling the truth?)

• The so-very-strange "24-hour notice" rule, preventing criminal trials from being scheduled on a certain date, which requires defendants and their counsel to drop everything and be ready for court at a moment's notice, unlike civil trial practice where lawyers and litigants can prepare accordingly for their day in court.

• The broken bail system, which, notwithstanding progress in recent years, still retains the antiquated practice of holding the criminally accused in custody, despite their presumption of innocence, unless that accused person can afford to pay money in exchange for his or her physical freedom.

• The document filing system, in the age of pizza delivery by drone, wherein fax machines are the exclusive method for court filings. In fact, the technological shortcomings of the Connecticut criminal court system could be the subject of a considerable literary project.

• The shameful way the pandemic was handled. An investigative task force to review the administration of the last three months should be assembled.

Look, I do not share the belief the courts should have remained open no matter what the scientific professionals warned. I also understand the reliable fallback position offered by the Judicial Branch ("We could not have prepared for something like a global pandemic"). Got it. However, what this pandemic revealed was that there was no preparation at all. The Judicial Branch was caught completely flat-footed and exploited by the pandemic for having zero contingency plans in place.

Despite the efforts of phenomenal judges such as Judges Joan Alexander and Frank Iannotti, who did their very best to manage criminal court operations and address the emergent health and constitutional issues of incarcerated men and women during a crisis, unfortunate results occurred. Defendants were precluded from appearing before the court to seek orders allowing them to return to their homes and be with their families, pretrial detainees spent more time in prison than they should have and others became sick with COVID-19.

This column merely asks the chief justice and others in a position to effectuate change to understand that, in 2020, it is time to abandon tradition and custom in favor of technology, innovation and efficiency. It is time to stop scaring defendants with the threat and consequences of failure to appear for nonessential court appearances. Defendants should be allowed as of right to waive their presence at every court date except arraignment, the scheduled plea disposition, trial, sentencing or when the court cites a specific reason to command the defendant's presence on a certain date.

Defendants should be canvassed on the waiver with counsel present, and counsel should be charged with ensuring case developments are communicated to defendants as they arise. This is an immediate, cost-effective step toward making good on the promise of reform, in line with the goal of seeking justice and not the unintended consequence of disrupting personal lives of the accused. Let the lawyers do their jobs, and let the accused, who already spend their hard-earned money on bonds, lawyers, fees, and fines—live their lives.

Civil rights and criminal defense attorney Daniel Lage is with Ruane Attorneys in Shelton.