HARTFORD, Conn.: The Connecticut Supreme Court on Wednesday grappled with whether a $20 million bond set for a former researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology accused of killing a Yale graduate student is unconstitutionally high and how state judges should go about setting bail amounts.
Justices heard just under an hour of arguments by a lawyer for Qinxuan Pan and a state prosecutor. The court did not issue an immediate decision.
Pan, 30, is charged with murder in the shooting death of Kevin Jiang on a New Haven street on Feb. 6. He eluded authorities for three months before being arrested in Alabama with $19,000 in cash, his fathers passport and several cellphones, police said.
Jiang, 26, an Army veteran who grew up in Chicago, was a graduate student at Yales School of the Environment. The motive for his killing remains unclear. Pan knew Jiangs fiancee from when they both attended MIT, but she told police they were just friends, according to court documents.
