The past five years have been especially challenging for Superior Court Judge Curtissa Cofield.
In 2008, she was suspended from her position as a judge for eight months after an episode in which she was arrested for drunk driving and then hurled insults at police officers.
Last week, she appeared before the Judicial Review Council on charges that she took too long to issue decisions in child welfare cases. For the second time in her career, Cofield was suspended under an agreed-upon disposition, this time for 30 days without pay.
Cofield, who has been on the bench since 1991, most recently in New Britain Juvenile Court, took the opportunity to apologize to those she's let down, and to explain the difficulties she has faced in her life. "A lot of people look up to me," Cofield told the members of the council. "I want to formally apologize to the community for the times I've let them down."
Cofield offered no explanation for the delays — some of them totaling nearly nine months — in issuing decisions in the cases involving children under the care of the Department of Children and Families. But she did discuss her much-publicized 2008 drunk driving arrest. Cofield explained that her father had died not long before, and she was distraught. "The rest is history. I drank too much, I left the bar and I got into an accident just after a construction site. I thank God that no one was seriously injured."
In addition to paying for her actions by losing a paycheck for eight months, the experience brought Cofield "shame and humiliation."
"I spent many years marveling at the light," she said. "And that is where I will return" from her latest transgression.
Under the agreement hashed out between the council and the judge's lawyer, Hubert Santos, Cofield admitted she had violated the rule that requires judges to issue written opinions within 120 days of trial.
As a result of those delays, according to attorneys representing DCF, 10 children were stuck in foster care limbo for more than a year. During that time, the children, who were awaiting adoption or placement in homes with relatives, were uncertain of their fates and could not be placed.
Joette Katz, a former Supreme Court justice who is now DCF commissioner, earlier this year asked the Supreme Court to direct Cofield to issue decisions in the cases which had been lingering. The high court then asked the state Appellate Court to handle the matter. On March 14, the Appellate Court directed Cofield to complete the decisions by April 1.
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