Leon v. Warden, State Prison
| Decision Date | 04 October 2017 |
| Docket Number | CV144006614S |
| Court | Connecticut Superior Court |
| Parties | Edwin Leon v. Warden, State Prison |
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
The petitioner, Edwin Leon, Jr., seeks habeas corpus relief from a total effective sentence of thirty-one years imprisonment imposed after a jury trial, for the crimes of manslaughter first degree with a firearm and a weapons possession violation. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of conviction on direct appeal. State v. Leon, 159 Conn.App. 526, 123 A.3d 136 (2015), cert. denied, 319 Conn 949, 125 A.3d 529 (2015). The petitioner's petition for relief is aimed only at the manslaughter conviction and sentence.
In his amended petition, the petitioner raises the claim that his criminal defense lawyers, Attorneys Donald Freeman and Darren Freeman, represented him ineffectively because, during summation, Attorney Donald Freeman conceded the petitioner's guilt to committing a reckless homicide without first consulting with the petitioner about that concession and obtaining his consent to employ that tactic. The court makes the following rulings of law and findings of fact.
As described above, the petitioner's specifications of ineffective assistance are very concise, yet involve fundamental issues concerning the role of defense counsel. The petitioner pleads, thusly:
The court now explores pertinent law governing a criminal defense lawyer's obligations with respect to concessions of responsibility and/or guilt as to a specific offense or a particular element of a given offense. The mere fact that defense counsel acknowledges his or her client's commission of some aspect of the allegations against the client is not ineffective assistance in se, Davis v Commissioner, 319 Conn. 548, 559-60, 126 A.3d 538 (2015); Florida v. Nixon, 543 U.S. 175, 192, 125 S.Ct. 551, 160 L.Ed.2d 565 (2004); United States v. Jones, 482 F.3d 60, 78 (2d Cir. 2006). The usual two-pronged analysis for ineffective assistance, as set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), applies when evaluating such concessions, unless exceptional circumstances exist, Florida v. Nixon, supra, 177. If the exceptional circumstances are present, then the holding of United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984), controls, and a habeas petitioner is relieved of the burden of proving that defense counsel's concessions actually prejudiced the petitioner. Id.
Like a confession, defense counsel's concessions during trial or argument are not the " functional equivalent" of a guilty plea, Florida v. Nixon, supra, 188. A guilty plea is more than an admission, Id. A guilty plea relieves the prosecutor of the burden of producing evidence that proves a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; it forecloses confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses; and it relinquishes an appeal of preplea errors, Id. Acknowledgment by defense counsel of guilty acts by the client do none of these things. The state still bears the same burden of proof; witnesses for the state are still subject to confrontation and cross-examination; and trial errors can be preserved for appeal, Id.
The Cronic exception, where prejudice is presumed, is " reserved for situations in which counsel has entirely failed to function as the client's advocate, " Id., 189, (emphasis added). To trigger the " automatic prejudice" of the Cronic rule, defense counsel must " entirely [fail] to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing, " Id. That " failure must be complete, " Id. Indeed, in the Cronic case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a lack of experience and inadequate trial preparation was insufficient to invoke the doctrine of presumed prejudice, United States v. Cronic, supra, 662-66.
In the present case, Attorney Donald Freeman clearly attempted to perform his duties as the petitioner's legal advocate throughout the petitioner's criminal trial. There was no " complete failure" of representation as required under the Cronic doctrine, supra . The court holds that the petitioner retains his obligation to demonstrate defense counsel's deficient actions or inactions prejudiced him, as set forth under the second prong of the Strickland standard, before he can prevail. See United States v. Jones, supra, 152.
Our Supreme Court has adopted the two-pronged Strickland test for evaluating ineffective assistance claims. Johnson v. Commissioner, 218 Conn. 403, 425, 589 A.2d 1214 (1991); Ostolaza v. Warden, 26 Conn.App. 758, 761, 603 A.2d 768 (1992). The Strickland criteria requires that the petitioner demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that his attorney's performance was substandard and that there exists a reasonable likelihood that the outcome of the proceedings would have been different. Id.
As to the performance prong of Strickland, the petitioner must establish that habeas counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. Johnson v. Commissioner, supra .
This standard of reasonableness is measured by prevailing, professional practices. Id. The habeas court must make every effort to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight and to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding counsel's conduct from that attorney's perspective at the time of the representation. Id.
If it is easier to dispose of a claim of ineffective assistance on the ground of insufficient proof of prejudice, the habeas court may address that issue directly without reaching the question of counsel's competence. Pelletier v. Warden, 32 Conn.App. 38, 46, 627 A.2d 1363 (1993). In order to satisfy the prejudice prong of Strickland test, the petitioner must prove that there exists a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceedings would have been different. Levine v. Manson, 195 Conn. 636, 640, 490 A.2d 82 (1985). Reasonable probability means a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. DaEira v. Commissioner, 107 Conn.App. 539, 542-43, 946 A.2d 249 (2008), cert. denied, 289 Conn. 911, 957 A.2d 877 (2008).
With this legal framework in mind, the court next addresses the performance prong of the Strickland test. The manner of the victim's death was and is undisputed. The petitioner and the victim were a couple who spent the evening of May 19, 2012, drinking and bickering about the petitioner's supposed infidelity. Upon returning home, the anger escalated to the point where the victim demanded that the petitioner leave the premises. He refused and brandished a loaded .35 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol. He grabbed the victim by her neck with his left hand and held her down on a bed while they physically struggled. The petitioner positioned the handgun against the skin on the left side of the victim's neck. The gun discharged and propelled a bullet that severed her carotid artery and blew off part of the petitioner's finger from his left hand.
While the victim gasped for breath, the petitioner dressed and left the residence without any effort to seek medical help for the victim. He spent around forty-five minutes walking to his mother's house. Upon arrival, he revealed what had just occurred to family members, one of whom called for emergency assistance for the victim. By the time aid arrived, the victim had died.
The petitioner voluntarily gave a statement to the East Hartford police recounting the details just described. The petitioner insisted that the shooting was unintentional and that he produced the pistol in an unsuccessful attempt to calm the victim who was very agitated. His trial testimony tracked this recitation of events.
The petitioner faced a principal charge of murder and lesser included offenses of intentional manslaughter first degree with a firearm, in violation of General Statutes § § 53a-55(a)(1) and 53a-55a; reckless indifference manslaughter first degree with a firearm, in violation of General Statutes § § 53a-55(a)(3) and 53a-55a; reckless manslaughter second degree with a firearm, in violation of General Statutes § § 53a-56(a)(1) and 53a-56a; and criminally negligent homicide, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-58.
The incontrovertible evidence was that the petitioner's action in placing a loaded pistol against the victim's neck while engaged in a physical tussle resulted in her fatal shooting. The disputed issue was the petitioner's state of mind when he took that action. The trial court correctly instructed the jury that the crime of murder required that the petitioner had the intent to kill the victim and purposefully shot her; that intentional manslaughter required the petitioner to intend to cause serious physical injury and purposefully shoot her; that recklessly indifferent manslaughter required that the petitioner evinced extreme indifference to the victim's life and engaged in conduct creating a grave risk of death; that manslaughter second degree required that the petitioner recklessly shot her; and that criminally negligent homicide required that the petitioner accidently shot the victim through criminal negligence.
The jury acquitted the petitioner of...
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