Connecticut Criminal Lawyer Blog

The Supreme Court settled the question of the standard to apply when presented with an issue of whether a Defendant already in custody has been subjected to interrogation and concluded that the trial court properly denied Defendant's motion to suppress the statements made to the police. But, Defendant's convictions for both possession of narcotics with intent to sell and possession of narcotics violated the guarantee against double jeopardy under the federal and state constitutions.

The Supreme Court ruled that whether a Defendant already in custody has been subjected to interrogation presents a mixed question of law and fact over which the court's review is plenary, tempered by a scrupulous examination of the record to ascertain whether the findings are supported by substantial evidence. The state conceded that the Defendant was in custody and the Supreme Court concluded that the facts as found did not constitute interrogation.

The Defendant did not properly preserve the issue of whether his statements were the product of police coercion or the claim that the state failed to assert the privelege to keep the identity of the informant confidential.

Defendant's constitutional protections against double jeopardy were violated as the charge for possession of narcotics with intent to sell and possession of narcotics arose from the same act or transaction and it is not possible to commit possession with intent to sell without first committing the offense of possession. The matter was remanded with direction to merge the convictions and to vacate the sentence on the conviction of possession of narcotics.

State v. Mullins
Connecticut Supreme Court
AC 18097

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Stephen Tunick was arrested and hired an attorney to represent him. He entered a plea of not guilty on September 12, 2006. After several continuances, the case was scheduled for trial to commence on November 20, 2006. On November 20, 2006, the court asked counsel and Tunick to determine if it was the Defendant's intent to apply for accellerated rehabiliation or to go to trial.

On November 21, 2006, counsel filed a motion for recusal asserting, inter alia, that the court participated in plea negotiations, demonstrated an appearance of bias and made incorrect representations of fact on the record. The court denied the motion. Tunick was convicted following a jury trial of one count of sexual assault in the fourth degree and appealed claiming that the court improperly refused to disqualify itself.

The Appellate Court affirmed. A thorough review of the record lead the court to conclude that there was no factual basis for Defendant's claim of bias. Nowhere in the record did it appear that the court participated in any plea negotiations or that the court in any way expressed an opinion that the case was a strong one for the state. The claim was meritless.

State v. Tunick
Connecticut Appellate Court
(AC 28461)

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Norraine McQueen started to get her life back from a 1991 cocaine conviction on a break at work more than four years ago.

“I was miserable,” she said. “I put pen to paper and wrote out my life’s story.”

She put it in the mail, and shortly thereafter received a letter back from then-Gov. John G. Rowland.

“He wrote and said I should ask for a pardon.”

McQueen, 36, received her pardon in June after a nearly two-year process. And she has begun speaking out on behalf of the Connecticut Pardon Team, a Norwich-based organization run by former Norwich Alderman Jacqueline Caron. It has helped guide thousands of people through the first steps of the application process.

“When you have a criminal record, you have no hope, no future,” said McQueen, a native of Jamaica and a mother of eight. “I’m going public with this because I want to reach out to other people, to let them know where they can turn for help. The difference now is that I have my life back. I can apply for a better job for my children. I don’t have to go on welfare.”

Caron is up front about her own pardon in 2001, stemming from incidents connected with a drinking problem. She and her husband, Richard Caron, founded the Connecticut Pardon Team in 2004 to help people with the application process.

Invisible bars
“You might make one mistake,” she said. “But once you’ve served your sentence, you keep serving. The bars are just invisible. Having a criminal record is like wearing a scarlet letter. It’s hard to get a job, because each time you fill out an application they ask, ‘Have you ever been convicted of a crime?’ If you say yes, they don’t ask you for the circumstances. They reach for a different pile of applications.”

“And these days it’s not just employment opportunities,” Richard Caron said. “It’s things like housing, insurance, education opportunities. They’re all asking these questions.”

Caron said her defense attorney knew about the process and encouraged her to pursue it. She said the pardon team is there specifically to assist with the long and detailed application process.

Richard Caron said the initial application is 17 detailed pages, and it can grow to 40 or more if an applicant is accepted in the initial screening process.

Erase the past
Now, when asked that question on an application, McQueen and others who have received a pardon may legally answer no, as if their past never happened.

“It’s a second chance,” Jacqueline Caron said.

“I knew Jackie, and she encouraged me to try,” McQueen said. “You have to get all your paperwork. You have to review your whole life. You have to answer a lot of embarrassing and unpleasant questions. They can ask you anything. And if you get a hearing, you have to answer them again in front of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and 200 other people who are there getting hearings.”

“The joke is that they end up knowing you better than your doctor,” Jacqueline Caron said.

The Carons said the pardon process is not a rubber stamp.

“Nor should it be,” Jacqueline Caron said. “You have the burden of proof. You really have to prove to them that you have turned your life around.”

“And just telling them, ‘I want a better job’ ain’t gonna cut it,” Richard Caron said.

He said the process has become more available in recent years.

“A few years ago, 58 percent of the applicants were turned down in the initial screening stage without a hearing,” he said. “The last numbers we have, from 2007, that is down to 21 percent. So the process is more accessible, though I don’t want to deceive anyone into believing that this is easy. It isn’t.”

McQueen’s husband, Alexander, said his wife’s criminal record was not as devastating as it might have been for other families,but it still was not easy to deal with.

New opportunities
Norraine McQueen said even in the short time since receiving her letter of acceptance in June, new horizons have begun to appear.

“I did not receive jail time; I got probation,” she said. “But, at the time, they wanted to deport me for that. I was seven months pregnant and had to get a waiver. But that also meant I could not travel out of the country. I went 10 years without seeing my mother. Now I can travel.”

Two weeks after getting her pardon, she finally received her green card, which is necessary for many kinds of employment for foreign nationals living in the United States.

She also hopes to obtain her state license as a hairdresser in the future.

“And now I can apply to become a United States citizen.”

By MICHAEL GANNON
Norwich Bulletin
Posted Aug 18, 2008 @ 03:00 AM

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Thomas Jenson was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of liquor or drugs. He moved to suppress the evidence prior to trial. The trial court denied Defendant's motion to suppress concluding that the police officers had a reasonable suspicion to believe that Defendant was driving under the influence of alcohol to justify the stop under U.S. v. Terry.

Defendant entered a conditional plea of nolo contendere and appealed. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's denial of Defendant's motion. The trial court found that a citizen's tip, a dark colored SUV repeatedly swerved and crossed the yellow line, combined with the officer's observation that Defendant was driving 15 mph in a 40 mph zone satisfied the test for reasonable suspicion.

Viewing the totality of the circumstances, the information provided to the officers was sufficiently corroborated to give the officers the necessary level of suspicion of operating while under the influence of liquor to justify the stop. Because the test for reasonable suspicion is an objective one, it was not improper for the court to consider all of the information available to the officers including their own observations of slow driving to conclude that the information that Defendant was driving erratically combined with the officers' own observations gave rise to a reasonable and articulable suspicion.

State v. Jensen
Connecticut Appellate Court
(AC 29035)

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HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - The Connecticut city of Hartford responded to mounting gun violence on Monday with a 30-day curfew for youths after one man was killed and 10 people were wounded in three separate attacks over the weekend.

"Let there be no doubt that this mayor will impose whatever measures necessary to keep the peace," Eddie Perez, mayor of the city of about 124,500 people, told a news conference.

Starting on Thursday, anyone under the age of 18 who is on the streets after 9 p.m. without an adult will be picked up by police and brought to a community center where a parent or guardian can collect them, he said.

Authorities in Hartford, about 120 miles northeast of New York City, were also setting up a "shooting team" dedicated to prosecuting "shooters to the fullest extent of the law, keeping them off the streets and behind bars," he added.

A "most watched list" of suspects associated with gun violence will be shared with prosecutors, said Perez. He also urged the state to increase supervision of convicted criminals released on bond or probation.

The weekend violence included a shooting on Saturday after the city's annual West Indian Pride Parade in which four teenagers were wounded, along with a 15-month-old girl and a seven-year-old boy who was shot in the head.

The nearly 400-year-old city, a center of the American insurance industry, has been beset by rising violence. About 150 people have been shot this year, compared with about 95 in the same period last year, according to Hartford police.

The city's 71-year-old former deputy mayor was badly beaten and robbed on his routine walk to breakfast on June 2, three days after a surveillance camera recorded a 78-year-old pedestrian struck by a car and laying helpless as passersby stared but did nothing to help.

(Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

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Terrell Kimble appealed from the judgment of conviction following his conditional plea of nolo contendere to criminal possession of a firearm and interfering with an officer among other charges. The plea followed the court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence. The state presented the following evidence.

A Hartford police officer was directed by dispatch to investigate a report that two black males in an automobile with New York marker plates. He did not observe them doing anything or see anyone approach the vehicle. He approached the vehicle and asked the occupants if they lived there and for identification. The driver had no identification and gave to different birth dates. A second officer arrived on the scene. The passenger, Terrell Kimble, exited the automobile and ran. The officers pursued and arrested him for criminal trespass and interfering with an officer. A third officer arrived at the scene and arrested the driver.

The officers began a search of the vehicle. A handgun was plainly visible lying on the floorboard near the passenger door that was left open. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to suppress the gun reasoning that the defendant lacked standing to challenge the validity of the search as a mere passenger and because the investigative stop was reasonable and the weapon seized was in plain view. The Appellate Court affirmed concluding that no search in connection with the seizure of the gun occurred. If a search occurred, the defendant lacked standing to challenge its legality.

Further, it could not reasonably be concluded that the defendant manifested any subjective expectation of privacy in the area of the automobile where the gun was seized. The defendant failed to demonstrate that his seizure was unlawful and could not demonstrate that the gun was the fruit of police illegality related to that seizure. The defendant was not seized until the officer pursued him following his flight from the car. The seizure was supported by a reasonable and articulable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal conduct.

State v. Kimble
Connecticut Appellate Court
(AC 26992)
Connecticut Law Tribune

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A habeas petitioner improperly raised an ex post facto claim arising out of the recalculation of his presentence confinement credits following the Connecticut Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Harris v. Commissioner of Correction. Vance Johnson was charged with murder and criminal possession of a firearm and held in pretrial custody. He plead guily to criminal possession of a firearm and was sentenced to five years incarceration. The commissioner of correction applied 819 days of presentence confinement credit to his five year sentence.

Thereafter, following a jury trial, Johnson was convicted of murder and sentenced to 60 years incarceration concurrent to the five year sentence. The conviction was affirmed on appeal. The commissioner moved the confinement credit from the five year sentence to the 60 year sentence. After Harris, which determined, inter alia, that once presentence confinement is applied to one sentence, it cannot be applied to a subsequent sentence, the commissioner reapplied the credit to the weapons charge.

As a result, Johnson's maximum release date was changed from July 5, 2052 to Dec. 12, 2054. Johnson's initial petition for a writ of habeas corpus alleging ineffective assistance of counsel was denied. His second petition for a writ of habeas corpus claimed that his trial and first habeas counsel were both ineffective and that the recalculation of his confinement credit violated his due process and equal protection rights. The habeas court found the claim with regard to trial counsel barred by the doctrine of res judicata, the claim concerning habeas counsel unproven and rejected the jail credit argument. The Supreme Court affirmed. The second habeas court properly concluded that the initial habeas counsel did not render ineffective assistance by failing to raise the issue of trial counsel's failure to present the testimony of a ballistics expert when such testimony would not have been helpful in establishing the petitioner's claim of self defense. The petitioner's claim on appeal that the respondent's retroactive application of Harris violated the ex post facto clause of the federal constitution was not raised in the lower court and the majority of the Court declined to review it. In a footnote the Court points out that the ex post facto clause is limited to actions of the legislative branch and that while a judicial construction of a criminal statute that operates like an ex post facto law may violate due process, the Court recently rejected a similiar claim in

Washington v. Commissioner of Correction.
Johnson v. Commissioner of Correction
(17997)
Connecticut Supreme Court
Connecticut Law Tribune

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