State v. Coleman

199 Conn. App. 172
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedJuly 21, 2020
DocketAC42157
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 199 Conn. App. 172 (State v. Coleman) 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. Coleman, 199 Conn. App. 172 (Colo. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

*********************************************** The “officially released” date that appears near the be- ginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be pub- lished in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the be- ginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion.

All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the latest version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative.

The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publica- tions, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. *********************************************** STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. DHATI COLEMAN (AC 42157) Keller, Elgo and Devlin, Js.

Syllabus

Convicted, on a conditional plea of nolo contendere, of the crimes of assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree and criminal possession of a firearm, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court improperly denied his motions to dismiss the charges against him because he was not brought to trial within a reasonable period of time in violation of his right to a speedy trial under the sixth amendment and his right under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (§ 54-186 et seq.) to a final disposition of his case within 180 days from the date on which he requested a speedy disposition. The defendant had been arrested in 2017 in connection with a shooting he was alleged to have committed in 2014. DNA was recovered from a cap that was left at the scene of the shooting. Shortly after the shooting, the police received information that the defendant had fled to Maine and obtained a warrant authorizing the taking of a DNA sample from him that was to be compared with the DNA sample from the cap. The DNA samples were not sent to the state’s forensics laboratory until 2016, when the laboratory matched the defendant’s DNA with that on the cap. In July, 2016, the police submitted to the state’s attorney’s office a draft arrest warrant application for the defendant, which was not signed by the affiant until February, 2017, and by the court until March, 2017, when the defendant was in federal custody in New Hampshire. The defendant was not returned to Connecticut and arrested until August, 2017. After the defendant entered his plea but prior to sentencing, he filed a second motion to dismiss, claiming that the state had failed to comply with the 180 day requirement for a final disposition of his case pursuant to § 54- 186 et seq. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss, reasoning that there had been no objection to the course of the proceed- ings under § 54-186 et seq., and rendered judgment in accordance with the defendant’s plea. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that his right to due process was violated because the state’s three year delay in filing charges against him caused him actual substantial prejudice and was unreasonable and unjustifiable: a. The trial court properly concluded that the defendant failed to prove that actual substantial prejudice resulted from the preaccusation delay; the defendant’s claim that he was prevented from gathering documen- tary, exculpatory evidence or that there was any witness who could have provided exculpatory testimony was speculative, and his assertion that he was unable to secure video surveillance from the area of the crime scene was unsupported by evidence that such surveillance video existed or that it would have been exculpatory. b. The defendant’s claim that the trial court improperly rejected his assertion that the state deliberately delayed his arrest to gain a tactical advantage over him was unavailing; it was not the role of this court to reexamine the evidence considered by the trial court or to construe it differently and in the light favorable to the defendant. 2. The defendant’s express waiver of any claim stemming from the postarrest delay in bringing him to trial was fatal to his assertion of a violation of his rights to a speedy disposition of his case under the sixth amendment and § 54-186 et seq. Submitted on briefs April 6—officially released July 21, 2020

Procedural History

Substitute information charging the defendant with two counts each of the crimes of assault in the first degree and robbery in the first degree, and with one count each of the crimes of larceny in the second degree, carrying a pistol without a permit, criminal pos- session of a pistol or revolver, criminal possession of a firearm and criminal possession of ammunition, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of New Haven, where the court, Blue, J., denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss; thereafter, the defendant was presented to the court, Clifford, J., on a conditional plea of nolo contendere to one count each of assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree and criminal possession of a firearm; subsequently, the court, Clif- ford, J., denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss and rendered judgment in accordance with the plea, from which the defendant appealed to this court. Affirmed. Tamar R. Birckhead, assigned counsel, filed a brief for the appellant (defendant). Kathryn W. Bare, assistant state’s attorney, Patrick J. Griffin, state’s attorney, and Michael Pepper, super- visory assistant state’s attorney, filed a brief for the appellee (state). Opinion

DEVLIN, J. The defendant, Dhati Coleman, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a condi- tional1 plea of nolo contendere, of assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a) (1), robbery in the first degree in violation of General Stat- utes § 53a-134 (a) (2) and criminal possession of a fire- arm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-217 (a) (1). On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court should have dismissed the charges against him because (1) the three year delay between the date of the commis- sion of the crimes in this case and his arrest (preaccusa- tion delay) violated his right to due process under the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitu- tion, and (2) once he was arrested, the state failed to bring him to trial within a reasonable period of time in violation of his right to a speedy trial under the sixth amendment to the United States constitution2 and his right under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), General Statutes § 54-186 et seq., to a final dispo- sition of his case within 180 days from the date on which he requested a speedy disposition. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court. The defendant filed two motions to dismiss the charges against him. In denying his first motion to dis- miss, the trial court, Blue, J., set forth the following relevant factual and procedural history. ‘‘[The defen- dant] was arrested for the crimes alleged in this case on August 30, 2017. The state subsequently filed a long form information charging [him] with two counts of assault in the first degree, two counts of robbery in the first degree, larceny in the second degree, carrying a pistol without a permit, criminal possession of a pistol or revolver, criminal possession of a firearm, and crimi- nal possession of ammunition.

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Related

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
199 Conn. App. 172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-coleman-connappct-2020.