Opinion
No. CR 94-0148154
April 12, 2011
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION IN RE DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO CORRECT AN ILLEGAL SENTENCE
The issue presented by this motion to correct arises from certain unique aspects of the procedural history of the above-captioned case, and the manner in which that history intersects with the procedural history of a second case for which the defendant also stands convicted. While these procedural histories are not in dispute, the parties disagree first as to whether this court has jurisdiction to consider the defendant's motion to correct, and second whether these histories have created a situation in which the defendant has been deprived of the benefit of a plea agreement he entered into with the state. After considering the written submissions and oral arguments of each party, the court concludes that a motion to correct can be utilized by the defendant under the circumstances present here as a means by which to enforce his understanding of the plea agreement. The court further concludes that the procedural quirks of these cases have resulted in a violation of that plea agreement. On the basis of these findings, the court hereby grants the defendant's motion to correct.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
In 1996, the defendant was arrested in two separate docket numbers and was charged with crimes arising from two separate incidents. The defendant was first arrested on June 6, 1994, in docket number CR 94-0457617 (hereinafter the trial case) and was held in custody from that date in lieu of bond. Approximately six weeks later, on July 20, 1994, the defendant was arrested in the above-captioned matter (hereinafter the plea case) and was held in custody from that date. Given his inability to post bail, the defendant remained in continuous pretrial detention on both files.
The defendant was tried first on the trial case, and was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit murder in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a-48 and 53a-54a, attempt to commit assault in the first degree in violation of §§ 53a-49(a)(2) and 53a-59(a)(1) and risk of injury to a minor in violation of § 53-21. On February 9, 1996, the trial court, Spada, J., imposed consecutive sentences of twenty years for the conspiracy to commit murder, twenty years for the attempted assault and ten years for risk of injury, for a total effective sentence of fifty years imprisonment. The defendant timely appealed these convictions.
At the time of the defendant's sentencing in the trial case, the defendant had been in pretrial detention in lieu of bond on that file for 613 days. As a result, the department of correction (hereinafter the department), upon its receipt of a judgment mittimus reflecting the imposition of a fifty-year sentence and pursuant to its standard policies, applied 613 days of credit toward the satisfaction of the defendant's fifty-year sentence.
Approximately three weeks after the defendant's sentencing in the trial case, on February 29, 1996, the defendant was presented before the court on the plea case and pleaded guilty under the Alford doctrine to conspiracy to commit murder in violation of §§ 53a-48 and 53a-54a and assault in the first degree in violation of § 53a-59(a)(1). The transcripts of the plea proceeding and the subsequent sentencing make clear that the defendant's pleas were entered pursuant to the terms of a plea agreement negotiated and entered into by the defendant and the state. That plea agreement, which is the subject of the current motion to correct, called for the defendant to receive a total effective sentence of thirty years imprisonment, with the specific understanding that the sentence was to run concurrently with the fifty-year sentence that had been imposed in the trial case. On March 27, 1996, pursuant to the plea agreement, the trial court, Espinosa, J., imposed the agreed upon thirty years concurrent sentence.
"Under North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970) . . . the defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that the state's evidence against him is so strong that he is prepared to accept the entry of a guilty plea nevertheless." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Parker, 295 Conn. 825, 828 n. 1 (2010).
Unlike his sentence in the trial case, the defendant was not entitled to any pretrial credit against his sentence in the plea case. In applying credit for pretrial confinement in situations where a defendant is held on multiple files, the department's policy provides that all available pretrial credit is to be applied to the sentence first imposed, and that any credit so applied is not thereafter to be reapplied to a sentence later imposed. See Harris v. Commissioner of Correction, 271 Conn. 808, 823 (2004). Due to this policy, the 569 days that the defendant had been in pretrial confinement on the plea case — from July 20, 1994, until February 9, 1996 — was not credited against the thirty-year sentence in that case because all of that credit (as well as the additional forty-four days in which the defendant was in custody on the trial case before his arrest on the plea case) had already been applied to the defendant's fifty-year sentence on the trial case.
Of course, at that point in time, the department's method of credit computation was consistent with the defendant's best interest. The defendant's thirty-year sentence was fully subsumed within his fifty-year sentence, leaving the fifty-year sentence as the defendant's controlling sentence. The defendant unquestionably preferred that all of his available credit be applied to his controlling sentence, rather than in effect being "wasted" in satisfaction of a sentence that had no impact on the defendant's ultimate release date.
On December 2, 1997, the Appellate Court issued its opinion in the defendant's appeal of the trial case. The court found insufficient evidence to support the defendant's conviction of attempted assault in the first degree and remanded the case with direction to render a judgment of acquittal as to that charge. State v. Torres, 47 Conn.App. 205, 225 (1997). As a result of this partial reversal, the defendant's sentence in the trial case was reduced from a term of fifty years incarceration to a term of thirty years.
In light of this reduction, the defendant is currently serving two concurrent thirty-year terms. The fact that these sentences are of precisely the same length and are being served concurrently does not mean, however, that they will expire on the same day. As computed by the department, the defendant's (now) thirty-year sentence on the trial case remains partially satisfied by 613 days of pretrial credit — or, viewed somewhat differently, the thirty-year term is deemed to have commenced on June 6, 1994, the date on which the defendant first entered pretrial confinement on that file.
Although the defendant's sentence on the plea case is also thirty years in length, that sentence, pursuant to the department's policy discussed above, is not partially satisfied by any period of pretrial confinement. As a result, the defendant's sentence on the plea case is deemed by the department to have commenced on March 27, 1996, the date on which it was imposed, and not the date on which the defendant entered pretrial confinement on that case. That thirty-year sentence therefore will expire significantly after the defendant will have discharged from his sentence in the trial case.
Confronted with the fact that he will now be held for a longer period on the plea case than he will be held on the trial case, the defendant filed the instant motion to correct on May 25, 2010. In the motion, the defendant claims that it was his reasonable understanding at the time he pleaded guilty that he would not be required to serve any more time on the plea case than he had already been ordered to serve on the trial case. He is asking this court to correct his sentence so that it conforms to his reasonable understanding of the plea agreement. To accomplish this purpose, the defendant requests that a revised mittimus be issued in the plea case that specifically directs the department to apply 569 days of credit in partial satisfaction of the sentence imposed in that case. A hearing on the matter was held before this court on March 7, 2011.
A motion to correct is an appropriate vehicle by which to seek the correction of a mittimus. State v. Gamble, 27 Conn.App. 1, 11-12, cert. denied, 222 Conn. 901 (1992).
SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION CT Page 9373
Practice Book § 43-22 provides in relevant part that "[t]he judicial authority may at any time correct an illegal sentence or other illegal disposition, or it may correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner . . ." "Sentences imposed in an illegal manner have been defined as being within the relevant statutory limits but . . . imposed in a way which violates [the] defendant's right . . . to be addressed personally at sentencing and to speak in mitigation of punishment . . . or his right to be sentenced by a judge relying on accurate information or considerations solely in the record, or his right that the government keep its plea agreement promises . . ." (Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. McNellis, 15 Conn.App. 416, 444, cert. denied, 209 Conn. 809 (1988).
In determining whether the instant motion fits within the McNellis framework, it is useful at the outset to identify precisely what the defendant claims and what he does not. The defendant does not argue that the department has calculated his pretrial credit improperly or in a manner inconsistent with the department's policies. Indeed, had that been the crux of the defendant's contention, a significant jurisdictional question would have been presented — one that has not yet been resolved by our Supreme Court. See Crawford v. Commissioner of Correction, 294 Conn. 165, 199 n. 21 (2009) (recognizing that current case law "does not control, whether Practice Book § 43-22 gives trial courts jurisdiction over motions to correct sentences that are alleged to be illegal as enforced by the department of correction").
While it may be true that the defendant's claim relates to the application of jail credit, the essence of the claim is based not upon the rules of the department, but rather squarely upon the rules regarding the enforcement of plea agreements as set forth in Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971). In Santobello, the Supreme Court emphasized that "when a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled." Id., 262. Unlike the unsettled law relating to credit calculation claims, there is no uncertainty that a motion to correct an illegal sentence is "available as of right" to a defendant seeking to address an alleged Santobello violation. Crawford v. Commissioner of Correction, supra, 294 Conn. 200. Thus, according to the parameters set out in McNellis, this court finds that it has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the defendant's claim.
In this regard, it bears mention that our Supreme Court recently indicated that trial courts should not unduly restrict the types of claims pursued by motions to correct. State v. Parker, supra, 295 Conn. 840 ("[T]he examples cited in McNellis are not exhaustive and the parameters of an invalid sentence will evolve.")
DISCUSSION OF LAW
The overarching principles that must guide the resolution of the instant motion to correct have recently been articulated by the Appellate Court. "[T]he reasonable expectations of the [defendant], when entering into a plea, are of great import because of the significance of the constitutional rights that are forfeited when choosing to plead guilty . . . The ultimate goal, however, in construing any plea agreement when there is a dispute as to its terms is the real intent of the parties . . ." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Dixson, 93 Conn.App. 171, 180, cert. denied, 277 Conn. 917 (2006).
To adhere to these principles and accurately ascertain the terms of the plea agreement and the intent of the parties, it is important to consider here the procedural setting in which the disputed plea agreement was negotiated. Less than three weeks prior to entering his plea, the defendant had been sentenced to a fifty-year term of imprisonment in the trial case. Having commenced the service of that sentence, the defendant then appeared before the court on the plea case and entered into an agreement to serve a thirty-year concurrent sentence.
The plea agreement afforded a significant benefit to both parties. On the one hand, the defendant benefited from the agreement by "capping" his total exposure on both cases to the fifty-year term that he had already received on the trial case. The state, on the other hand, received the assurance that even if the convictions in the trial case were reversed on appeal, the defendant still would be required to serve thirty years in prison on the plea case — a case that the state itself recognized may not have been easily proven at a trial.
At the defendant's sentencing on the plea case, the state commented as follows: "So I think that this is an appropriate sentence. He is doing a fifty-year sentence. This will ensure, even if something happens to the other case on appeal, this will ensure that he will be removed from the community for a very significant period of time. So I ask your honor to accept the agreement." Tr., March 27, 1996, pp. 2-3.
Again at the defendant's sentencing, the state articulated the following: "I think the agreement contemplates and balances the serious nature of this crime against the difficulty the state would have to proving the case. There are a number of problems with the case. It wasn't exactly, to be assured, a strong case." Tr., March 27, 1996, p. 2.
The plea agreement therefore encompassed the following possible outcomes. First, if the defendant was unsuccessful on his appeal of the trial case, the controlling sentence would be the fifty-year sentence in that case and the defendant therefore would serve a total effective sentence of fifty years incarceration on both cases. Second, if the defendant's appeal in the trial case was wholly successful — that is, if all of his convictions in that case were overturned then the defendant's controlling sentence (indeed, his only sentence) would be the thirty-year sentence in the plea case.
Importantly, in each of these outcomes the defendant would have received pretrial credit against his controlling sentence for the period of pretrial confinement he served prior to his conviction. In the first instance, the defendant would have been awarded 613 days of pretrial credit in partial satisfaction of his fifty-year sentence in the trial case. In the second instance, the defendant's thirty-year sentence in the plea case would have been reduced by the 569 days of pretrial credit in that file.
In addition to these scenarios, however, there also existed a third possible outcome — the outcome at issue here whereby the defendant's appeal would be successful in part. As a result of the Appellate Court's decision, the defendant's sentence in the trial case was reduced to thirty years — the same sentence the defendant is serving in the plea case. Although there was no indication that this outcome would have an adverse impact upon the defendant's jail credit calculation, which is precisely what has occurred. Because the sentence in the trial case (albeit reduced) still exists, the department will leave intact the 613 days of credit already applied to that case, but will not apply any credit to the concurrent thirty-year sentence in the plea case. As a result, even though the defendant entered into an agreement in the plea case for a thirty-year sentence concurrent with what is now a thirty-year sentence in the trial case, he will, in fact, be required to serve a total effective sentence of thirty years plus 569 days.
To this result, the state responds only that the defendant got what he bargained for, thereby implying that the parties actually considered that the concurrent sentence in the plea case could take more than thirty years to fully satisfy. This court does not agree with that proposition. There is no reasonable basis upon which this court can find that the parties intended the defendant to serve a total effective sentence on both cases of any more than thirty years imprisonment if the sentences in the trial case were vacated on appeal or reduced to a term of thirty years or less. Stated more directly perhaps, a sentence of thirty-one years and seven months was not, as the court sees it, part of the deal. In fact, common sense compels a contrary conclusion.
It cannot be overlooked here that the state entered into negotiations on the plea case at a time when the defendant stood wrongfully convicted in the trial case of attempted assault in the first degree and, therefore, wrongfully sentenced to a term of imprisonment twenty years greater than that he would later learn was the maximum he legally could have received. Within that procedural posture and with the defendant unaware of his true exposure in the trial case, the state was successful in negotiating a plea in a weak case; see footnote 6 of this decision; which insulated thirty years of that "inflated" fifty-year sentence. In the court's opinion, had the defendant known at that time that his sentence in the trial case could not in fact exceed thirty years, it is entirely unreasonable to conclude that he would have agreed to a thirty-year concurrent sentence in the plea case if by doing so he was agreeing to serve more time on that case than on the trial case.
The state's argument to the contrary notwithstanding, it is not enough simply to say that the agreement in the plea case called for a thirty-year concurrent sentence, and that a thirty-year concurrent sentence was imposed. This position overlooks the possibility that subsequent procedural events may result in a sentence that, though properly imposed, is contrary to the parties' intent. In such circumstances, it is appropriate for the court to ensure that "the reasonable expectations of the defendant"; State v. Dixson, supra, 93 Conn.App. 180; are met and the primary objective of the plea agreement is preserved.
In sum, the court concludes that, given the outcome of the appeal in the trial case, it was the intent of the parties that the defendant serve a total effective sentence in both cases of thirty years and not thirty years and 569 days. This increased sentence amounts to a breach of the plea agreement and flies in the face of not only the defendant's reasonable expectations, but, in the court's view, those of the state as well. Given his reliance on the terms of the plea agreement, the defendant is entitled to seek its enforcement.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, the court hereby grants the defendant's motion to correct and orders that a revised mittimus be issued in the above-captioned case directing the department to apply 569 days of credit against the defendant's sentence for the period of his pretrial confinement from July 20, 1994, until February 9, 1996.