Wilson v. Warden

227 A.2d 265, 26 Conn. Super. Ct. 464, 26 Conn. Supp. 464, 1967 Conn. Super. LEXIS 179
CourtConnecticut Superior Court
DecidedFebruary 14, 1967
DocketFile 147031
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 227 A.2d 265 (Wilson v. Warden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilson v. Warden, 227 A.2d 265, 26 Conn. Super. Ct. 464, 26 Conn. Supp. 464, 1967 Conn. Super. LEXIS 179 (Colo. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

Klau, J.

The plaintiff was found guilty of the crimes of breaking and entering, § 53-76 of the General Statutes, and larceny, § 53-63 of the General Statutes, after a trial by jury in the Superior Court in Hartford County, and then was put to plea on the second part of the information on October 1, 1965, as a habitual offender; § 54-121 of the General Statutes; to which charge he pleaded guilty. Thereafter, he was sentenced under both parts of the *465 information on October 8, 1965, for a term of not less than five years nor more than thirty years.

The plaintiff was represented by counsel, and exceptions were taken by such counsel during the course of the trial. Part B of the information, to which the plaintiff pleaded guilty, recited that he had been twice convicted and sentenced and imprisoned in a state prison, namely: “On or about the 11th day of December, 1957, at the Superior Court holden in and for the County of Fairfield, the said Charles A. Wilson was duly convicted of Breaking and Entering; Habitual Criminal, and was sentenced to be confined in the Connecticut State Prison for a term of not less than three nor more than thirty years, and was thereafter imprisoned under said sentence; and the said Charles A. Wilson was on the 10th day of November, 1948, at Charles-town, Massachusetts, duly convicted of Breaking and Entering, and Larceny, and was thereupon sentenced to be confined in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution for a term of not less than five nor more than six years, and was thereafter duly imprisoned under said sentence, in violation of Section 54-121 of the Connecticut General Statutes, Revision of 1958.”

I

The plaintiff alleges in the first count of his amended petition for habeas corpus that he was not represented by counsel at the time of the Massachusetts conviction of November 10, 1948. Among the exhibits admitted in this proceeding was a copy of the Massachusetts Criminal Docket No. 1408 in the case of Commonwealth v. Oren Phillips et al. (It should be noted that the docket contains the name of Oren Phillips, an alias used by the plaintiff, and for the sake of clarity and to avoid confusion the name of Oren Phillips will not be *466 ■used hereafter.) The docket does not contain the name of any attorney who appeared for or represented Wilson, the plaintiff, during this felony conviction. A letter from the trial judge further raises the question as to whether he was represented by counsel. The state in its brief concedes that the plaintiff was not represented by counsel in the Massachusetts trial. Accordingly, this conviction cannot stand. The plaintiff’s trial and conviction on November 10,1948, in Massachusetts without the assistance of counsel violates the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). There is no limitation on the retrospective application of the Gideon rule. United States ex rel. Durocher v. LaVallee, 330 F.2d 303, 310 (1964). The defendant raises the question whether the plaintiff has waived his constitutional right to counsel by pleading guilty to part B of the information long after Gideon v. Wainwright had been decided and at the time that he was represented by counsel. Waiver is the intentional relinquishment of a known right. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 464 (1938). There is nothing to indicate that plaintiff’s counsel, at the time of plaintiff’s plea of guilty to part B of the information, was aware of the fact that the plaintiff was not represented by counsel in 1948 in connection with the Massachusetts conviction, or that the plaintiff was fully aware of the legal implication of the doctrine of Gideon v. Wainwright, supra. See Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 439 (1963). No waiver can be found, and the conviction on part B of the information as a habitual criminal cannot be sustained, since only one valid conviction remains under part B of the information.

The plaintiff is entitled to an order that he be resentenced in the Superior Court. There is no reason, however, why he should not be resentenced *467 as a second offender under § 54-118 of the General Statutes, since he was informed prior to the trial of his case, in accordance with the Eules of Practice (Practice Book § 487), by the clerk of the Superior Court of the contents of part B, which included a valid conviction and sentence for the commission of a felony by the Superior Court in Fairfield County on December 11, 1957, resulting in the plaintiff’s confinement in the Connecticut state prison as above recited.

The case of United States ex rel. Brown v. Reincke, Civil No. 11,389, D. Conn. (Blumenfeld, J.), while appearing to void a Connecticut conviction of the plaintiff in that case as a habitual offender and ordering that he be returned to the Superior Court for resentencing as a first offender, is not contrary to the view herein expressed, although the opinion would appear to indicate that only one prior conviction was held invalid. Eeseareh and inquiry by the court indicate that both of the Maine convictions forming the basis for Brown’s sentence as a habitual criminal were, for lack of counsel, declared invalid, and consequently the plaintiff was ordered to be resentenced only as a first offender. Nor is the decision of Judge Wright in Jessie v. Warden, Superior Court, Hartford County, No. 147350 (Oct. 14, 1966), contrary to the present order, since in that case, although only one conviction was held invalid, the plaintiff had already served a period in excess of the maximum for a second offender and hence there could be no resentencing again for any longer term.

The state’s attorney is given leave to amend part B of the information and to set forth the conviction in Fairfield County of December 11, 1957, of which the plaintiff was advised by the clerk of the Superior Court prior to his plea of guilty to the *468 original information, and, accordingly, an order may be entered returning the plaintiff for resentencing in the Superior Court as a second offender in connection with his conviction for the crimes of breaking and entering and larceny, for which he was originally sentenced on October 8, 1965.

II

The second count of the petition asserts that the plaintiff’s present imprisonment is illegal and that he was deprived of the right to counsel under the sixth and fourteenth amendments and the due process and equal protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution, and that he was prevented from effecting an appeal to the Supreme Court of this state of his conviction by the jury on October 1,1965, for the crimes of breaking and entering and larceny. The evidence discloses that he was represented during the trial by private counsel.

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Related

Vitale v. Commissioner of Correction
178 A.3d 418 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 2017)
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842 A.2d 633 (Connecticut Superior Court, 2002)
State v. Brown
234 A.2d 646 (Connecticut Superior Court, 1967)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
227 A.2d 265, 26 Conn. Super. Ct. 464, 26 Conn. Supp. 464, 1967 Conn. Super. LEXIS 179, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-warden-connsuperct-1967.