State v. Fletcher

191 A.3d 1068, 183 Conn. App. 1
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedJune 26, 2018
DocketAC39358
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 191 A.3d 1068 (State v. Fletcher) 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. Fletcher, 191 A.3d 1068, 183 Conn. App. 1 (Colo. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

KELLER, J.

The defendant, Darryl Fletcher, appeals from the judgment of the trial court revoking his probation pursuant to General Statutes § 53a-32 and sentencing him to a term of incarceration of eighteen months.

The defendant claims that he is entitled to a new sentencing hearing because the court improperly relied on a fact that was not part of the record. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The following undisputed facts and procedural history are relevant to our analysis. In 1999, the defendant was convicted of possession of narcotics with intent to sell by a person who is not drug-dependent in violation of General Statutes § 21a-278 (b), possession of narcotics with intent to sell within 1500 feet of a public school in violation of General Statutes § 21a-278a (b), possession of marijuana in violation of General Statutes § 21a-279 (c), and three counts of criminal possession of a pistol or revolver in violation of General Statutes § 53a-217c. The defendant received a total effective sentence of twenty years, execution suspended after thirteen years, followed by five years of probation. This court affirmed the judgment of conviction. State v. Fletcher , 63 Conn. App. 476 , 777 A.2d 691 , cert. denied, 257 Conn. 902 , 776 A.2d 1152 (2001).

The defendant's probationary period commenced when he was released from incarceration on November 17, 2011. 1 Among the court-ordered special conditions of the defendant's probation 2 was that he submit to drug screening, evaluation, and treatment and that he obtain full-time verifiable employment. In 2015, the defendant was arrested and charged with violating his probation in violation of General Statutes § 53a-32. The defendant denied the charge. The matter was tried before the court on May 2, 2016. At the conclusion of the adjudicatory phase of the hearing, the court found that the state had proven that the defendant had violated several of the conditions of his probation. Specifically, the court found that the defendant did not verify his employment with his probation officers, failed to complete a domestic violence treatment program, failed to submit to a drug treatment program, and tested positive for marijuana and cocaine use. At the conclusion of the dispositional phase of the hearing, the court terminated the defendant's probationary status and sentenced him to serve a term of incarceration of eighteen months. 3

On June 28, 2016, the defendant filed the present appeal. The defendant does not claim that the court erroneously determined, in the adjudicative phase of the hearing, that he violated his probation. The defendant claims that, in the dispositional phase of the hearing, the court improperly inferred from the evidence that, for nearly a year, he eluded service of the warrant charging him with violating his probation. 4 Moreover, the defendant argues that, in imposing its sentence, the court ''substantially relied upon its faulty determination that the defendant was avoiding being arrested ....'' The remedy that he seeks from this court is a new sentencing hearing.

On August 31, 2017, after the defendant filed his principal brief, the state filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that it became moot when the defendant was released from the custody of the Department of Correction (department) on August 22, 2017. The state argued that this court could no longer afford the defendant, who was challenging only the manner in which the court imposed its sentence and not the finding that he had violated his probation, any practical relief. In his objection to the motion to dismiss, the defendant acknowledged that he had been released from custody on August 22, 2017, but argued that exceptions to the mootness doctrine applied and that this court should not dismiss the appeal. This court denied the state's motion without prejudice to the state, and permitted the state to address the mootness issue in its brief and the defendant to address the issue in his reply brief. They have done so. Additional facts will be set forth as necessary.

I

First, we address the state's argument that the appeal is moot because the defendant has completed his sentence. ''Mootness is a question of justiciability that must be determined as a threshold matter because it implicates [a] court's subject matter jurisdiction .... It is well settled that [a]n issue is moot when the court can no longer grant any practical relief.'' (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Middlebury v. Connecticut Siting Council , 326 Conn. 40 , 53-54, 161 A.3d 537 (2017). ''Under such circumstances, the court would merely be rendering an advisory opinion, instead of adjudicating an actual, justiciable controversy.'' State v. Jerzy G ., 326 Conn. 206 , 213, 162 A.3d 692 (2017). ''Because courts are established to resolve actual controversies, before a claimed controversy is entitled to a resolution on the merits it must be justiciable....

Justiciability requires (1) that there be an actual controversy between or among the parties to the dispute ... (2) that the interests of the parties be adverse ... (3) that the matter in controversy be capable of being adjudicated by judicial power ... and (4) that the determination of the controversy will result in practical relief to the complainant.'' Glastonbury v. Metropolitan District Commission , 328 Conn. 326 , 333, 179 A.3d 201 (2018). ''[A]n actual controversy must exist not only at the time the appeal is taken, but also throughout the pendency of the appeal....

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Related

State v. Shin
193 Conn. App. 348 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2019)
State v. Dunbar
205 A.3d 747 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2019)
State v. Fletcher
193 A.3d 1212 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 2018)
State v. Walcott
196 A.3d 379 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2018)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
191 A.3d 1068, 183 Conn. App. 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-fletcher-connappct-2018.