State v. Chapman

565 A.2d 259, 20 Conn. App. 205, 1989 Conn. App. LEXIS 343
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedNovember 7, 1989
Docket7654
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 565 A.2d 259 (State v. Chapman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Appellate Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Chapman, 565 A.2d 259, 20 Conn. App. 205, 1989 Conn. App. LEXIS 343 (Colo. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinion

Dupont, C. J.

The sole issue of this appeal is whether the speedy trial provision of the Connecticut Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), General Statutes § 54-186 et seq., applies to the defendant. The defendant argues that charges pending against him in Connecticut should have been dismissed by the trial court because he was not brought to trial within 180 days of his request for a final disposition of those charges, which were the basis of a detainer lodged against him.1

[207]*207During the first half of 1987, the defendant was sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the state of Georgia.2 In December, 1987, while incarcerated in Georgia, the defendant was contacted by Connecticut authorities, pursuant to the IAD, about detainers that had been lodged against him. In response, and in compliance with article III of the IAD, the defendant filed a request for final disposition of all charges pending against him in Connecticut. On February 19,1988, the Georgia board of pardons and paroles issued a certificate of conditional transfer, and transferred the defendant to the custody of the state of Connecticut. Subsequently, on November 8, 1988, the court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss after an evidentiary hearing.3 The defendant then pleaded nolo contendere to the charges4 and appealed from the denial of the motion. See Practice Book § 4003 (b).

Article III (a) of General Statutes § 54-186 provides that a person who has requested a final disposition of charges pending against him and who is entitled to the benefits of the statute must be brought to trial within 180 days. Article V (c) of General Statutes § 54-186 provides that if that person is not brought to trial within the time provided, the charges against him shall be dismissed.5 In order to invoke the protection of article [208]*208III (a), the defendant must be a person who has entered upon a term of imprisonment that still continues at the time dismissal of the charges is sought. The trial court found that the defendant was not a person serving a term of imprisonment within the meaning of the statute, and that, therefore, he was not entitled to the benefit of the speedy trial provision of the statute.6

The defendant argues that the trial court’s conclusion about his status in the state of Georgia was clearly erroneous. He asserts that the language of the conditional certificate of transfer indicates that the defendant was still serving a term of imprisonment in Georgia at the time that he filed his motion to dismiss. He contends that no evidence was presented that he had ever been considered for parole prior to his transfer to Connecticut, and that, according to the certificate, custody would revert to the state of Georgia if he were released prior to February 1,1990. Furthermore, he claims that the trial court’s ruling effectively circumvents the purposes of the IAD.

The state argues that the IAD did not apply to the defendant because he was no longer subject to a term of imprisonment at the time of the hearing on his motion to dismiss.

A primary purpose of the IAD is to foster the rehabilitation of prisoners. State v. Foshay, 12 Conn. App. 1, 11, 530 A.2d 611 (1987). Proponents of the IAD have noted that “the uncertainty and anxiety accompanying outstanding charges often inhibits prisoner [209]*209response to training programs and thwarts efforts at rehabilitation.” Id., citing United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 359, 98 S. Ct. 1834, 56 L. Ed. 2d 329 (1978). If, however, a defendant has no immediate interest in institutional rehabilitation programs because he is no longer serving a term of imprisonment, he is not within the class of defendants that the statute was designed to protect. State v. Foshay, supra, 12-13; see also United States v. Dobson, 585 F.2d 55, 59 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 899, 99 S. Ct. 264, 58 L. Ed. 2d 247 (1978); State v. Harris, 14 Conn. App. 244, 249, 540 A.2d 395 (1988).

Several Connecticut cases have discussed the consequences of the status of defendants attempting to invoke the protection of detainer statutes. In State v. Foshay, supra, the defendant’s status as a parolee imprisoned while awaiting a parole revocation hearing was not in dispute. The question, instead, was whether that status entitled the defendant to the protection of the speedy trial provision of General Statutes §§ 54-82c and 54-82d, the intrastate equivalent of the I AD. We found that it did not.

The facts in State v. Harris, supra, also were uncontroverted. The defendant had been serving a prison sentence when a detainer was lodged against him, but he had been released before the 120 day limit of General Statutes § 54-82c had expired. At the time he sought dismissal of the pending charges, he was a pretrial detainee incarcerated in lieu of bond. The question on appeal was whether those facts were sufficient to support a conclusion that the defendant was continuing a term of imprisonment within the meaning of the statute. We determined that the facts did not support that conclusion.

Similarly, other cases involving the IAD have rested, not on a factual dispute, but on whether the trial court [210]*210erred in its conclusion that the statute applied, or on whether the trial court erred in its interpretation of the language of the statute. See Remick v. Lopes, 203 Conn. 494, 525 A.2d 502 (1987); State v. Braswell, 194 Conn. 297, 481 A.2d 413 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1112, 105 S. Ct. 793, 83 L. Ed. 2d 786 (1985).

In the present case, unlike those previously cited, the relevant facts were in dispute in the trial court. The defendant argued that he was a prisoner of the state of Georgia at the time his motion to dismiss was heard, and that he would continue to be subject to a term of imprisonment in Georgia until February 1, 1990. The state argued that the defendant was no longer subject to a term of imprisonment in Georgia at the time of the hearing on his motion to dismiss.

Whether the defendant continued to be subject to a term of imprisonment in Georgia was a question of fact for the trial court to resolve. A question of fact is one to be determined by the trier based upon the conflicting evidence presented at trial. Sweet v. Sweet, 190 Conn. 657, 663, 462 A.2d 1031 (1983). The defendant does not claim that the IAD should have been applied even if he no longer had been serving a prison term at the time of his motion. Instead, he argues that the court should have applied the act because he was continuing a term of imprisonment in Georgia. In short, the defendant does not seek a determination that the court erred in its interpretation of a provision of the IAD, which would be a matter of law; see Parks v. Bourbeau, 193 Conn.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
565 A.2d 259, 20 Conn. App. 205, 1989 Conn. App. LEXIS 343, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-chapman-connappct-1989.