In a notice seeking a judgment, Ralph "Ricky" Birch asserted he is entitled to the additional award because the estate of David Shortt, a New Milford police officer who died in 2019, turned down a sealed offer of compromise dated Oct. 25, 2021.
Because the jury found Shortt liable, the rejected settlement offer triggers a simple interest calculation dating back to Dec. 2, 2020, when Birch commenced the lawsuit, the notice claims.
"Plaintiff is therefore entitled to 8% simple annual interest on the amount of the verdict, which was awarded solely on causes of action pursuant to state law," the document reads.
The filing notes that the settlement offer was greater than the eventual verdict.
In addition to the offer of compromise interest, the notice seeks a $350 statutory attorney fees and costs that will be detailed in future paperwork.
The jury found Shortt's estate liable Wednesday under a common-law negligence theory.
Birch accused Shortt of failing to intervene when a state police officer fed details about the Dec. 2, 1985, murder of Everett Carr to a jailhouse informant who testified Birch confessed to the crime.
The jury declined to hold Shortt's estate liable under statutory negligence theories or federal civil rights counts.
The jury also declined to find another town officer liable for allegedly mishandling $1,000 found in a bank envelope — the presence of which, Birch maintained, could have disproved the authorities' theory that Carr was killed in a botched robbery.
If Carr died during a bona fide burglary, the $1,000 would not have been left at the scene, Birch's attorneys argued.
Instead, Birch said, Carr died during a crime of passion. He was beaten, stabbed 27 times, and his throat was slit.
The police zeroed in on Birch, then 18, and his associate Shawn Henning, then 17, because the two were small-time burglars who drove a loud car, trial testimony revealed. A witness claimed a loud car may have been present near the Carr home around the time of the overnight killing.
Birch said he and Henning were trying to feed a drug habit but weren't killers. Both teens denied involvement in the crime, and New Milford's then-deputy police chief believed them.
That deputy chief, Norbert Lillis, testified last week during Birch's civil rights trial that the police chief took him off the case when he expressed doubts about the teens' alleged involvements.
Other evidence also didn't stack up, Birch argued during the eight-day trial in New Haven federal court.
Several bloody shoe prints at the crime scene didn't match the tread patterns on shoes owned by either Birch or Henning, an FBI analyst testified. Plus, the prints were far too small, the analyst said.
The teens' unkempt car contained no evidence of the crime, Birch noted.
Unknown DNA was mixed with several samples of Carr's blood, his attorneys told the jury.
Todd Cocchia, the informant who became a star witness at the criminal trial, recanted his testimony nearly three decades later.
In Birch v. Commissioner of Correction
, the Connecticut Supreme Court on June 14, 2019, granted a habeas corpus petition and ordered a new trial. The state's highest court reached a similar conclusion in Henning v. Commissioner of Correction , issued the same day.Prosecutors declined to try the case a second time and dismissed all charges on July 10, 2020.
Birch was released after serving 30 years of a 55-year sentence.
Birch asked for $50 million at the end of his federal civil rights case.
Arguing through Elliot B. Spector of Hassett & George PC, Shortt's estate told federal jurors that it was the state police, not the town officer, who gave Cocchia "a few inconsequential facts" about the case.
According to Spector, the authorities took Cocchia at his word because he signed a statement promising to tell the truth. Officers are employed to gather information, not to weigh an informant's veracity, Spector added.
Spector claimed Shortt had no duty to intervene in Cocchia's interview, calling the town officer "merely a witness to a brief, cordial, consensual interview."
The state separately settled with Birch and Henning for $12.6 million each in 2024.
The state's settlement ended accusations that Dr. Henry C. Lee, a renowned forensics expert who for more than two decades served as the director of the Connecticut State Forensic Laboratory, incorrectly testified that a towel recovered from an upstairs bathroom at the crime scene had tested positive for the presumptive presence of blood.
When asking lawmakers to approve the state settlement, Deputy Attorney General Eileen Meskill said the item was never tested and that subsequent tests proved a small red stain on the towel was not blood.
Birch's lawyers declined to comment when reached Thursday. Attorneys for the town did not respond to inquiries.
Birch is represented by David A. Lebowitz, Douglas E. Lieb and Alyssa Isidoridy of Kaufman Lieb Lebowitz & Frick LLP and Damon A. R. Kirschbaum of Kirschbaum Law Group LLC.
Spector and Shortt's defendants are represented by Elliot B. Spector, Jeffrey O. McDonald and Forrest Noirot of Hassett & George PC.
The case is Birch v. New Milford et al., case number 3:20-cv-01790, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.
--Editing by Amy French.