Carpenter v. Meachum

• Citation: 229 Conn. 193,640 A.2d 591
• Decision Date: 18 March 1994
• Docket Number: No. 14595,14595
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Parties: Richard T. CARPENTER v. Larry R. MEACHUM, Commissioner of Correction.

Page 591

640 A.2d 591

229 Conn. 193

Richard T. CARPENTER v. Larry R. MEACHUM, Commissioner of Correction.

No. 14595.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 5, 1994.

Decided March 18, 1994. ^*

John R. Williams, New Haven, for the plaintiff in error.

Margaret Gaffney Radionovas, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Michael Dearington, State's Atty., and Christopher Alexy, Asst. State's Atty., for the defendant in error.

Before PETERS, C.J., and BORDEN, BERDON, NORCOTT and KATZ, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

In this companion case to Simms v. Warden, 229 Conn. 178, 640 A.2d 601 (1994), the dispositive issue is the constitutionality of General Statutes § 52-273 ¹ insofar as that statute deprives this court of subject matter jurisdiction over a writ of error brought to review the denial of a petition of habeas corpus after the habeas court has denied certification to appeal. We conclude that the statute passes constitutional muster and that the writ of error must, therefore, be dismissed.

The plaintiff in error, Richard T. Carpenter (plaintiff), filed a revised petition for a writ of habeas corpus to challenge the legality of his detention by the defendant in error, Larry R. Meachum, commissioner of correction (state), pursuant to his 1990 conviction of the crime of manslaughter in the first degree. ² He alleged that he had been denied his constitutional right to effective assistance of trial counsel as guaranteed by the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution. ³ After an evidentiary hearing, the habeas court denied the petition, concluding that the plaintiff had failed to prove either that his trial counsel had rendered ineffective assistance, or that, even if the representation had been ineffective, it was probable that, but for that ineffectiveness, a different result would have been realized. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674, reh. denied, 467 U.S. 1267, 104 S.Ct. 3562, 82 L.Ed.2d 864 (1984). The habeas court thereafter denied the plaintiff's petition for certification to appeal. Without attempting to challenge the validity of this denial, the plaintiff then filed a writ of error in this court.

Pursuant to his writ of error, the plaintiff contends that the judgment of the habeas court should be set aside because that court improperly excluded relevant evidence and improperly rejected his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. While countering these contentions on their merits, the state also maintains that, for two reasons, both grounded in § 52-273, we lack subject matter jurisdiction over the writ of error in this case. First, the state contends that the plaintiff may not bring a writ of error because, under the second sentence of § 52-273, "[n]o writ of error may be brought in any civil or criminal proceeding for the correction of any error which might have been reviewed by process of appeal." Second, the state contends that the writ of error must be dismissed as untimely because, contrary to the first sentence of § 52-273, the plaintiff's writ was not "allowed and signed within two weeks after the rendition of the judgment or decree complained of." We agree with the state's first jurisdictional claim and, therefore, need not reach the other issues.

In Simms v. Warden, supra, 229 Conn. 178, 640 A.2d 601, we have today concluded that, as a matter of statutory construction, § 52-273 deprives this court of subject matter jurisdiction to hear a writ of error challenging the propriety of a judgment denying a petition for a writ of habeas corpus regarding a criminal conviction, when the habeas court has denied the petitioner's request for certification to appeal. ⁴ In this case, besides reiterating the statutory argument that we rejected in Simms v. Warden, supra, the plaintiff further contends that it is unconstitutional for the legislature to limit this court's authority to decide any writ of error filed in conformity with the rules of the Practice Book.

Before we consider the merits of the plaintiff's constitutional argument, we must determine whether the plaintiff's claims to relief fit within the terms of the writ of error that we have enacted pursuant to our rule-making authority. Practice Book § 4143(b), on which the plaintiff relies for jurisdiction to proceed in this court, does not provide unlimited authority to bring to this court a writ of error in habeas corpus cases.

Section 4143(b) allows a petitioner in a habeas corpus proceeding who has been denied certification to appeal to pursue a writ of error only with respect to issues that "do not present any federal question cognizable by the federal district court." This limitation presents a difficulty to the plaintiff in this case because his substantive claim in the habeas court, and in this court, is that he was deprived of the assistance of effective counsel under the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution. The plaintiff maintains, nonetheless, that his evidentiary claim entitles him to invoke § 4143. He argues that his evidentiary claim arises as a matter of state law and that this evidentiary claim is both independent of and antecedent to the federal question of ineffective assistance of counsel. We doubt that the drafters of § 4143 envisaged the administrative complexities that such a bifurcation of habeas appeals would entail. For the purposes of the present proceedings, however, we will assume that the plaintiff's articulation of an evidentiary claim would suffice to permit him to have recourse to Practice Book § 4143 if that provision were not inconsistent with General Statutes § 52-273.

We turn, therefore, to the merits of the plaintiff's constitutional claim that state constitutional principles rooted in the separation of powers established in the Connecticut constitution of 1818 deprive the legislature of authority to limit this court's jurisdiction to determine when we will hear a writ of error. ⁵ Two cases are central to the plaintiff's argument. The first is Szarwak v. Warden, 167 Conn. 10, 355 A.2d 49 (1974), in which we restated and applied state constitutional limitations on the authority of the legislature to impair the jurisdiction of the constitutional courts. The second is State v. Assuntino, 173 Conn. 104, 376 A.2d 1091 (1977), in which we concluded that this court has the authority to adjudicate a common law writ of error even though the legislature has not affirmatively authorized such a writ of error to be brought. These cases do not sustain the plaintiff's claim.

In Szarwak v. Warden, supra, 167 Conn. 10, 355 A.2d 49, we held that state constitutional principles of separation of powers prevent the legislature from conferring broad criminal jurisdiction on a nonconstitutional trial court in derogation of the constitutional jurisdiction of the Superior Court. We reiterated the position that we had taken in Walkinshaw v. O'Brien, 130 Conn. 122, 127, 32 A.2d 547 (1943), that the constitution of 1818 preserved "the essential characteristics" that this state's constitutional courts then possessed. We quoted with approval the statement in Walkinshaw v. O'Brien, supra, 130 Conn. at 142, 32 A.2d 547, that "[i]t is entirely clear ... that the legislature has not the competency to impair the essential nature or jurisdiction of any of the constitutional courts." Szarwak v. Warden, supra, did not purport, however, to identify "the essential characteristics" of this constitutional court.

In State v. Assuntino, supra, 173 Conn. 104, 376 A.2d 1091, we permitted the state to bring a writ of error to contest dismissal of criminal charges by the Court of Common Pleas, for which the legislature had provided no right of appeal. Recognizing inconsistencies in earlier Connecticut cases about whether a writ of error was purely statutory, we concluded that "the common-law writ of error was adopted by Connecticut as part of its own common law." Id., at 110, 376 A.2d 1091. No statute expressly purported to limit the state's authority to bring a writ of error; id.; and we concluded that the legislature had not impliedly intended to do so. Id., at 106, 376 A.2d 1091. Accordingly, we held that it was "unnecessary for this court to consider whether the jurisdiction to hear such a writ is an essential attribute of the constitutional role of this court...." Id., at 110, 376 A.2d 1091. Assuntino, therefore, did not set constitutional limits on the legislature's authority to determine this court's jurisdiction over writs of error.

The constitutional question raised by this case is narrower than the question that remains unanswered by State v. Assuntino, supra, 173 Conn. 104, 376 A.2d 1091. We need not decide to what extent the legislature may constitutionally encroach on the writ of error as it existed at common law. The only question before us is whether the legislature may constitutionally limit recourse to a writ of error to review a judgment in a habeas corpus proceeding concerning the validity of a criminal conviction. We are persuaded that, although a writ of habeas corpus existed at common law, the denial of such a writ was not reviewable either on appeal or by writ of error.

The plaintiff has cited no case, and our research has disclosed none, in which this court or its historical antecedents, at or near the time of the adoption of the Connecticut constitution of 1818, reviewed the merits of a trial court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus. Perhaps the closest analogy may be found in a series of early nineteenth century cases concerning appeals sought to be taken from trial court rulings denying a petition for a new trial. These cases do not support the plaintiff. They uniformly held that, because a petition for a new trial calls upon the trial court to exercise its discretion, a writ of error does not lie on a judgment or decree refusing to grant such a petition. Magill v. Lyman, 6 Conn. 59, 60 (1825); White v....