Richard N. Palmer (born May 27, 1950) is a former Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
Palmer received his Bachelor of Arts Phi Beta Kappa, from Trinity College in Hartford in 1972.
He went on to receive the Juris Doctor with high honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law, in 1977.
After practicing privately with Shipman & Goodwin, Palmer was an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut, interrupted briefly by a stint in the firm of Chatigny and Palmer.
On October 10, 2008, Palmer wrote the majority opinion for the Connecticut Supreme Court case Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health, granting marriage rights to same-sex couples in Connecticut, striking down a law passed in 2005 granting civil union rights to them.