Halladay v. Comm'r of Corr.
| Decision Date | 05 August 2021 |
| Docket Number | SC 20369 |
| Citation | 262 A.3d 823,340 Conn. 52 |
| Parties | Joseph HALLADAY v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Vishal K. Garg, West Hartford, for the appellant (petitioner).
Kathryn W. Bare, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Patrick J. Griffin, state's attorney, and Adrienne Russo, assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (respondent).
Christine Perra Rapillo, chief public defender, Emily H. Wagner, assistant public defender, and Jennifer Bourn, supervisory assistant public defender, filed a brief for the Office of the Chief Public Defender as amicus curiae.
Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Kahn and Ecker, Js.
The principal issue in this certified appeal is whether a discovery order issued by a habeas court that implicates the attorney-client privilege between a petitioner and the attorneys who represented him during the underlying criminal proceedings is an appealable final judgment under State v. Curcio , 191 Conn. 27, 31, 463 A.2d 566 (1983). The petitioner, Joseph Halladay, appeals, upon our grant of his petition for certification,1 from the judgment of the Appellate Court, which dismissed his appeal from the order of the habeas court directing the petitioner to produce certain investigative materials contained in the file of his criminal defense attorneys. On appeal, the petitioner claims that (1) the Appellate Court improperly dismissed his appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and (2) the habeas court improperly granted the motion for production filed by the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, over his claims of privilege. Because the habeas court's order does not constitute an appealable final judgment, we cannot review whether the habeas court properly rejected the petitioner's claim that his attorneys’ case file was privileged. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.
The record reveals the following undisputed facts and procedural history. On February 9, 2011, pursuant to a plea agreement, the petitioner pleaded guilty to the crimes of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a (a) and tampering with physical evidence in violation of General Statutes § 53a-155 (a) (1). The plea agreement provided that the petitioner would receive a sentence in a range of twenty-seven to forty years’ imprisonment; the trial court sentenced him to forty years’ imprisonment. Subsequently, on May 25, 2018, the petitioner filed a revised amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, that the plea agreement was the result of the ineffective assistance of the public defenders who had been assigned to represent him in the underlying criminal proceedings. Specifically, the petitioner alleged that the assistance of counsel was ineffective because of their failure, among other things, to perform adequate factual investigation and legal research, to adequately impeach or cross-examine certain witnesses, to investigate and present evidence on specific matters, to consult or present the testimony of various experts and professionals, to present the petitioner's testimony, to adequately prepare a defense, to present mitigating evidence during sentencing, and to preserve the petitioner's appellate rights, as well as numerous other failures regarding the plea negotiations.
The respondent subsequently filed a motion for the production of relevant materials from the petitioner's underlying criminal defense and investigative files.2 The habeas court heard the respondent's motion on February 22, 2019. In its order granting the respondent's motion, the habeas court stated:
On March 15, 2019, the petitioner filed both a motion for reconsideration with the habeas court and an appeal from the habeas court's discovery order with the Appellate Court.3 The habeas court denied the motion for reconsideration, and the Appellate Court subsequently granted the respondent's motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of a final judgment. This certified appeal followed. See footnote 1 of this opinion.
On appeal, the petitioner claims that (1) the Appellate Court improperly dismissed the petitioner's appeal for lack of a final judgment, and (2) we should reach the merits of his claims and conclude that the habeas court's order would have violated his attorney-client privilege, as waiver does not commence until trial begins. We address each claim in turn.
The petitioner claims, inter alia, that the habeas court's discovery order constituted an appealable final judgment under State v. Curcio , supra, 191 Conn. at 31, 463 A.2d 566, because it (1) terminated a separate and distinct proceeding regarding his property interests in the case file, and (2) concluded the petitioner's right to maintain the confidentiality of the case file so that no further proceedings could affect that right.
We begin by setting forth the applicable standard of review. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Rockstone Capital, LLC v. Sanzo , 332 Conn. 306, 312–13, 210 A.3d 554 (2019).
"Because our jurisdiction over appeals ... is prescribed by statute, we must always determine the threshold question of whether the appeal is taken from a final judgment before considering the merits of the claim." State v. Curcio , supra, 191 Conn. at 30, 463 A.2d 566. Under General Statutes §§ 52-263 and 51-197a, the "statutory right to appeal is limited to appeals by aggrieved parties from final judgments." Id. Id. at 31, 463 A.2d 566. We address each Curcio prong in turn.
We begin with the petitioner's claim that the habeas court's order effectively terminated a separate and distinct legal proceeding for purposes of the first prong of Curcio because the discovery dispute resolved a property interest in his case file, which was separate from the merits of the habeas petition. The petitioner relies on Abreu v. Leone , 291 Conn. 332, 340–41, 968 A.2d 385 (2009), and Woodbury Knoll, LLC v. Shipman & Goodwin, LLP , 305 Conn. 750, 755–56, 48 A.3d 16 (2012), two cases in which this court held discovery orders to be final judgments. In response, the respondent relies on Redding Life Care, LLC v. Redding , 331 Conn. 711, 207 A.3d 493 (2019), and argues that the discovery order is not a separate and distinct proceeding under Curcio but, rather, a mere step along the road to the final judgment in the habeas proceeding to which the petitioner is a party, thus distinguishing this case from the authorities relied on by the petitioner. We agree with the respondent and conclude that the discovery order did not terminate a separate and distinct legal proceeding.
In Abreu , the intervening plaintiff, the Department of Children and Families (department), appealed from the order of the trial court compelling it to disclose information that would violate General Statutes § 17a-28 (b), which prohibits the disclosure of records maintained by the department. See Abreu v. Leone , supra, 291 Conn. at 334–35, 968 A.2d 385. In determining that the challenged order was an appealable final judgment, we focused on the fact that the department was not a party to the underlying action and, thus, lacked the statutory right to appeal from the conclusion of that proceeding. See id. at 349–50, 968 A.2d 385. We also emphasized that the trial court order at issue was unequivocal in its directives and that there were no further proceedings concerning the matter between the plaintiff and the defendant that involved the department. See id. at 345–47, 968 A.2d 385.
Subsequently, in Woodbury Knoll, LLC , a nonparty law firm brought a writ of error from the trial court's order to produce materials that it claimed were protected by attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product doctrine. See Woodbury Knoll, LLC v. Shipman & Goodwin, LLP , supra, 305 Conn. at 752, 48 A.3d 16. In determining whether there was subject matter jurisdiction, this court identified three guiding principles emerging through its final judgment jurisprudence: (1) "the court's focus in determining whether there is a final...
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