Connecticut Criminal Lawyer Blog

The owner of a building in Hartford had a standing complaint with police to investigate unauthorized activity on his property. On January 28, 2006, officers responded to information received about narcotics activity occurring on the property. They saw a van in the driveway with the engine running and the lights off. They blocked the driveway with their cruiser and approached. The driver, Cameron Mounds, acted nervously and made furtive movements with his hand toward his waist. He did not respond to questions about why he was there. He failed to comply with repeated requests to show his hands.

Mounds refused to get out of the van and began flailing his arms as the officers arrested him for interfering with an officer and criminal trespass in the third degree. The officers found ten small bags filled with a white rock like substance in his waistband and $605 in small bills. He moved to suppress the items seized asserting that the evidence was obtained as a result of an illegal warrantless arrest and that the subsquent warrantless search of his person and automobile lacked probable cause.

The trial court denied the motion and Mounds was convicted. The appellate court affirmed. The trial court properly denied the motion to suppress. The defendant's challenge to a factual determination lacked merit. The trial court was free to credit the officer's testimony that he could see the building's signs. Under the facts, the trial court properly determined that the officers had a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the defendant was trespassing when they blocked the driveway.

They were justified in proceeding with an investigatory stop of the vehicle. Because there was probable cause to arrest the defendant for interfering with an officer, the search incident to the arrest was valid. The defendant waived his claim that the state used peremptory challenges to strike two African-American venire persons in a discriminatory manner in violation of the 1986 United States Supreme Court case of Batson v. Kentucky by failing to contest the trial court's acceptance of the prosecutor's explanations.

State v. Mounds
Connecticut Appellate Court
AC 28126

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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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Lawyers are closely watching the case of a swimming pool company president who was charged with second-degree manslaughter Monday in a drowning case, saying it could change the legal landscape for business owners in Connecticut.

If successfully prosecuted, the criminal case against David Lionetti, president of Shoreline Pools in Stamford, could hold the state's business owners and professionals to a new and stricter level of responsibility for their work, legal experts said.

Lionetti, 53, has been released on $25,000 bail. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. Police say Lionetti, of Stamford, "recklessly caused the death" of 6-year-old Zachary Cohn in 2007 by failing to install mandated safety devices in the pool. Zachary drowned after his arm was trapped by the suction of a powerful drain pump.

Although the case is not unprecedented, criminal defense lawyers and legal experts said it is unusual.

"My guess is, if you've got a business where you're dealing with dynamite or nitro, they're going to hold you to a reckless standard if you do anything remotely off the protocol," said Todd Fernow, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, who heads the school's criminal law clinic. "But for something like a pool? People drown in pools every day."

Lionetti's attorney, Richard Meehan Jr., said his client plans to plead not guilty.

Eugene Riccio, a criminal defense lawyer in Bridgeport, described Lionetti's case as a "creative use of the manslaughter statute" that could very well be proven in court.

"Just because it's creative doesn't mean it's legally flawed," he said. "It puts other people involved in commercial activities on notice that they could be held criminally liable in the conduct of their business."

Defense lawyer Audrey Felson said she was "at a loss for words" when she first heard about the criminal charge brought against Lionetti.

"This is the first time I've ever heard of this rising to the level of criminal responsibility. ... There's a lot of gray area [in criminal law], but these are things we would've never thought," she said. "I could imagine it would make people in the service industry, whatever they do, much more concerned about what their obligations and responsibilities are."

The case does not mark the first time that a business owner has been criminally charged in connection with services rendered in Connecticut.

David Wilcox, owner of the dump truck in a 2005 crash on Avon Mountain that killed four and injured 11, is facing manslaughter charges.

Fernow recalled an electrician he represented 15 years ago who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter after he incorrectly wired a heater and caused a house fire that killed a young child. Fernow unsuccessfully appealed the case, but he remains skeptical of the charge against Lionetti.

"There are going to be a lot of dueling experts. It's going to be a very difficult case to litigate depending on [Lionetti's] track record," he said. "They're going to have to show actual knowledge on his part of the failure to take measures. And I would be surprised, without knowing all of the facts, if this goes all the way."

It's possible, he said, that "this is just a show trial, to accomplish the purpose by scaring people."

Since 1985, more than 150 cases have been reported in the U.S. of swimming pool drain entrapments, leading to at least 48 deaths and many serious injuries, including disembowelment, of children and adults, according to a lawsuit filed by Zachary's parents.

Police said Zachary Cohn drowned when his arm got stuck in an intake valve in the deep end of the family's in-ground pool on July 26, 2007. Water entering the intake valve is pumped through filters before being returned to the pool.

Zachary's parents, Brian Cohn, former president of one of the world's largest hedge funds, SAC Capital Advisors, and his wife, Karen, have filed a civil lawsuit alleging that the pool violated safety code requirements.

In a statement released Monday, the couple said they hoped that filing criminal charges against Lionetti would "prevent another horrific incident like this from happening to someone else."

"Those who knowingly violate pool safety codes designed to protect children should be held accountable for their actions," the couple said in the statement.

Contact Lynn Doan at ldoan@courant.comt.

An Associated Press report is included in this story.

By LYNN DOAN | Courant Staff Writer

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A career criminal who fatally strangled and stabbed a woman last year, leaving her to die at the Connecticut River in South Windsor, was sentenced to 35 years in prison today.

William Walters of Windsor Locks was sentenced in Superior Court in Hartford before Judge David Gold, who said this is effectively a life sentence.

Walters is 46 and is not eligible for parole.

On April 24, Walters pleaded guilty to murder in the July 5, 2007 death of Debra Vigneau of Somers.

William C. Walters Police said Walters had been having an affair with Vigneau, 50, when they got into an argument by the river in South Windsor last year. Police said Vigneau, concerned that Walters was seeing another woman behind her back, threatened to throw his car keys in the river if he didn't tell her whom he had been talking to on his cellphone.

Police said Vigneau also threatened to report their affair to Walters' wife. He responded by lunging at her and killing her.

Police found Vigneau's body in some brush on the side of Vibert Road, which leads to the dock. They found Walters soon afterward at the Windsor Locks home of another woman he had been seeing. That woman told police that he showed up with blood on his clothes and tried to wash the blood off with a shower, police said.

Court records show that Walters has an extensive criminal record and was on parole through 2010 in connection with a 2003 arrest charging him with escape, first-degree larceny and failure to appear in court.

In a statement to police after the killing, Walters' wife, Rose Walters, said her husband had called her shortly afterward and told her that he had killed someone because she had been picking on him, police said.

By CHRISTINE DEMPSEY | Courant Staff Writer

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NORWALK — Three Bridgeport men have accepted plea deals on charges involving the firing of a paint ball gun at a Westport police officer.
The incident occurred after Officer Richard Bagley stopped a car with a defective license plate light on April 10. When Bagley walked up to the vehicle, its rear hatch opened and one man fired a paint ball gun at him.

Police say that thinking he was under fire, Bagley dove to the ground.

Twenty-five-year-old Jaret Ortiz, 19-year-old Juan Carlos Trinidad-Cosme and 20-year-old Octavio Real were facing more than 20 years in prison.

In court Monday, Ortiz pleaded guilty to assault on a police officer and is facing a maximum of six years.

The other two suspects face a maximum two years in prison.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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STAMFORD — After a historic ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last week, gun advocates in Connecticut can rest assured that their Second Amendment rights are safe.

On June 26, the court ruled 5-4 that a Washington, D.C. handgun ban was unconstitutional and for the first time recognized that the Second Amendment affords individuals the right to own a gun for self-defense and hunting purposes.

"Thank God," said Gary Mammana, former owner of Stamford Archery and Firearms. "I know first hand how state implemented gun laws hurt legal gun owners, not the criminals."

On April 13, 2007 Mammana was escorted from his shop at 379 Shippan Ave. by two state police officers for selling what state officials told him were legal guns. The charges against Mammana were later dropped and expunged from the records after he agreed to an accelerated rehabilitation, he said. However, his business never recovered. He was soon forced to shut down.

"I opened up my gun shop against the advice of a lot of people. Selling guns isn't a lucrative business because of the country's feelings toward guns," he said.
Although state and city legislators say the supreme court's ruling won't effect Connecticut's current gun laws, Mammana hopes it will.

"I'll bet somebody brings suit against the state of Connecticut as a result [of the court's ruling]," he said.

"As far as the supreme courts decision, we don't expect any impact for Connecticut," said Ron Pinciaro, a spokesman for Connecticut Against Gun Violence. Where issues could arise are in cities and states with stricter gun laws like San Francisco, New York and Chicago, he said.

State Rep. William Tong, D-147, said that Connecticut's gun laws are in line with most other jurisdiction's and that the court's decision should have little baring on Connecticut.

"What this [ruling] means is that Connecticut can continue to do what it needs to do to prevent unnecessary gun violence," he said.

Tong has advocated for stricter gun laws in Connecticut. His Lost and Stolen Firearms bill, which requires gun owners to report a lost or stolen firearm within 72 hours since it went missing, recently passed and became law.

The Second Amendment states "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, "Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

While Mammana agrees with the more obvious state implemented restrictions placed on legal gun owners, he believes upholding the U.S. constitution should be first priority.

"Most states that have these bans are violating the Second Amendment," he said. "This was a victory, but legal gun owners need to continue to speak out."

By CHASE WRIGHT

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