State v. Eastman

• Decision Date: 08 November 2005
• Docket Number: No. 25821.,25821.
• Citation: 884 A.2d 442,92 Conn.App. 261
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Brian R. EASTMAN, Jr. State of Connecticut v. John N. Scasino. State of Connecticut v. Sergio Urzua.

884 A.2d 442

92 Conn.App. 261

STATE of Connecticut v. Brian R. EASTMAN, Jr.

State of Connecticut v. John N. Scasino.

State of Connecticut v. Sergio Urzua.

No. 25821.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued September 16, 2005.

Decided November 8, 2005.

Ralph D. Sherman, West Hartford, for the appellants (defendants).

Sarah Hanna, special deputy assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Mary M. Galvin, state's attorney, and Marjorie Sozanski, deputy assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

FLYNN, DiPENTIMA and HARPER, Js.

HARPER, J.

The defendants in this consolidated appeal, Brian R. Eastman, Jr., John N. Scasino and Sergio Urzua, appeal from the judgments of the trial court rendered following the denial of their motions to dismiss for insufficiency of cause. On appeal, the defendants claim that the court improperly found that a town ordinance requiring persons to obtain a permit from the town chief of police to discharge a firearm within the limits of the municipality did not intrude on the state's right to regulate hunting. We dismiss the appeal as moot.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our disposition of the defendants' appeal. On December 23, 2003, the defendants were hunting geese at the Grassy Hill Country Club in Orange. At the time, each of the defendants possessed a valid hunting license from the department of environmental protection. The defendants also had obtained permission from the custodian of the grounds prior to hunting on the property.

While the defendants were hunting, an individual driving by the golf course heard gunshots. The driver thought that his vehicle may have been hit by a stray shotgun pellet. He stopped to speak with the defendants and then called the Orange police department. The police subsequently issued each of the defendants a misdemeanor summons and complaint charging them with having violated a town ordinance. Although the defendants possessed valid hunting licenses and had permission from the golf course to be hunting on those grounds, they did not have permits from the Orange chief of police to discharge a firearm on that particular property, as required by Orange Code of Ordinances § 211-1.¹

The defendants each filed a motion to dismiss for insufficiency of cause, claiming that Connecticut municipalities lack the authority to regulate hunting by individuals who possess valid hunting licenses issued by the state. The court denied the defendants' motions, holding that the ordinance at issue did not conflict with the state statutes that regulate hunting because the ordinance sought only to protect the public peace and safety rather than specifically to regulate hunting. The defendants then entered conditional pleas of nolo contendere, reserving the right to appeal from the court's denial of their motions to dismiss. The court imposed a $50 fine, without costs, on each defendant. The defendants paid their respective fines and this appeal followed.

The parties did not raise the issue of mootness in the present appeal, but we do so sua sponte because mootness implicates the court's subject matter jurisdiction. It is, therefore, a threshold matter to resolve. State v. Aquino, 89 Conn.App. 395, 399, 873 A.2d 1075, cert. granted on other grounds, 275 Conn. 904, 882 A.2d 676 (2005). "The doctrine of mootness is rooted in the same policy interests as the doctrine of standing, namely, to assure the vigorous presentation of arguments concerning the matter at issue. . . . [Our Supreme Court has] reiterated that the standing doctrine is designed to ensure that courts and parties are not vexed by suits brought to vindicate nonjusticiable interests and that judicial decisions which may affect the rights of others are forged in hot controversy, with each view fairly and vigorously represented. . . . 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." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. McElveen, 261 Conn. 198, 204, 802 A.2d 74 (2002). If an actual controversy does not exist between the parties, both when the appeal is filed and through the pendency of the appeal, then the case has become moot. Id., at 205, 802 A.2d 74; Williams v. Ragaglia, 261 Conn. 219, 225, 802 A.2d 778 (2002).

Under General Statutes § 54-96a, the payment of a fine before a hearing in the Appellate Court "shall vacate the appeal and restore the judgment." When a defendant voluntarily pays in full a fine that has been imposed, there is "complete compliance with the sentence of the court; the [substantive] questions [become] moot; the matter [is] at an end, and no right of appeal exist[s] thereafter from the satisfied judgment and sentence. . . . [T]he fine having been paid, the court [cannot] reopen the judgment . . . since it [is] satisfied.. . . It is clear that where an act has been done in execution of a sentence, the court is without power to erase the judgment." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Arpi, 75 Conn.App. 749, 752-53, 818 A.2d 48 (2003).

In this case, the defendants were charged with violating a town ordinance. After the court denied their motions to dismiss for insufficiency of cause, the defendants entered conditional pleas of nolo contendere, reserving the right to appeal from the court's denial of their motions to dismiss. The court then fined each of the defendants $50, without costs. During the pendency of their appeal, the defendants voluntarily paid the fines that the court imposed. Consequently, the judgments against the defendants have been satisfied, and the substantive issues that they have raised on appeal are moot.

Notwithstanding the mootness of the defendants' appeal, "a controversy continues to exist, affording the court jurisdiction, if the actual injury suffered by the litigant potentially gives rise to a collateral injury from which the court can grant relief." State v. McElveen, supra, 261 Conn. at 205, 802 A.2d 74. Such a situation arises when a litigant demonstrates "a basis upon which [the court] could conclude that, under the circumstances, prejudicial collateral consequences are reasonably possible as a result of the alleged impropriety challenged on the appeal." (Emphasis added.) Id. "[This] standard requires that, for a litigant to invoke successfully the collateral consequences doctrine, the litigant must show that there is a reasonable possibility that prejudicial collateral consequences will occur. Accordingly, the litigant must establish these consequences by more than mere conjecture, but need not demonstrate that these consequences are more probable than not. This standard provides the necessary limitations on justiciability underlying the mootness doctrine itself. Where there is no direct practical relief available from the reversal of the judgment . . . the...