State v. Tucker
| Decision Date | 30 July 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 14265,14265 |
| Citation | 219 Conn. 752,595 A.2d 832 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Chester Eugene TUCKER. |
Leah A. Hawley, Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, were Eugene Callahan, State's Atty. and Warren Murray and Robert Hall, Asst. State's Attys., for appellant (State).
Temmy Ann Pieszak, Asst. Public Defender, with whom, on the brief, was G. Douglas Nash, Public Defender, for appellee (defendant).
Before PETERS, C.J., and SHEA, GLASS, COVELLO and BORDEN, JJ.
This is the state's appeal from the trial court's orders granting the application of the defendant, Chester Eugene Tucker, for accelerated rehabilitation (AR) pursuant to General Statutes § 54-56e, 1 and thereafter dismissing the criminal charge that the state had lodged against him. We conclude that under the unique circumstances of this case, neither of the court's orders were so unreasonable as to constitute an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, we affirm.
The material facts are undisputed. On May 1, 1990, the defendant was arrested and charged with the crime of sale of narcotics in violation of General Statutes § 21a-278(b). 2 The defendant subsequently filed an application for AR pursuant to § 54-56e. At the July 13, 1990 hearing on the application, the state described the circumstances attendant to the alleged crime, and defense counsel notified the court that approximately two weeks prior to his arrest, the defendant had enlisted in the United States Navy. The court, over the state's objection, granted the defendant's application and imposed a two year period of probation. After defense counsel explained that the Navy would not accept a recruit on probation, the court further ordered the defendant's probation specially conditioned upon his appearance in court with his Navy recruiter five days later, ready to enter the Navy. The court notified the parties that it would at that time entertain a motion to dismiss the charge against the defendant if he complied with the special condition.
At the July 18, 1990 hearing, the defendant appeared in court with his recruiter, ready, as both he and his recruiter informed the court, to enter the Navy. When the recruiter declared that the Navy would reject the defendant if the dismissal of the charge were conditioned upon his entering the Navy, the court explained that the special condition of the defendant's probation was that he appear in court, with his recruiter, ready to enter the Navy. The court then found that the defendant had complied with the special condition and dismissed the charge. On July 27, 1990, the defendant entered the Navy. The defendant was on active duty in the Middle East on the USS Guadalcanal at the time of oral argument in this case.
On the date of the dismissal of the charge against the defendant, the state moved for permission to appeal pursuant to General Statutes § 54-96. 3 The trial court granted the motion on July 27, 1990, and the state appealed to the Appellate Court on August 8, 1990. We transferred the appeal to this court in accordance with Practice Book § 4023.
On appeal, the state attacks the trial court's orders: (1) granting the defendant's application for AR; and (2) dismissing the charge against him. 4
In connection with its claim that the court should not have granted the defendant's application for AR, the state advances two alternative contentions, each grounded on the following language of § 54-56e 5: "There shall be a pretrial program for accelerated rehabilitation of persons accused of a crime ... not of a serious nature." (Emphasis added.) The state initially contends that because § 21a-278(b), 6 subject to certain exceptions inapplicable here, mandates the imposition of a nonsuspendable minimum sentence upon a defendant convicted under the statute, the unclassified felony of sale of narcotics is per se a crime "of a serious nature" within the meaning of § 54-56e, and therefore, that the legislature intended that a defendant charged with this crime be denied eligibility for AR. Alternatively, the state contends that a defendant accused of violating § 21a-278(b) is automatically ineligible for AR unless the defendant sustains what the state considers a statutorily mandated burden to demonstrate that the crime, in light of its surrounding circumstances, was not "of a serious nature." General Statutes § 54-56e. We are not persuaded by either of the state's contentions.
While the nonsuspendable mandatory minimum sentence that may be imposed upon a defendant convicted under § 21a-278(b) may indicate that the legislature considered the sale of narcotics a serious offense, § 54-56e itself is wholly devoid of any language suggesting that the legislature intended that such a defendant be per se denied the opportunity to apply for AR. Furthermore, § 54-56e specifically provides that "[t]his section shall not be applicable to any person charged with a violation of §§ 14-227a, 53a-56b or 53a-60d, or to any person accused of a family violence crime as defined in § 46b-38a who (1) is eligible for the pretrial family violence education program established under § 46b-38c, or (2) has previously had the pretrial family violence education program invoked in his behalf." We infer from the express designation of the offenses to which § 54-56e does not apply that the legislature intended only defendants charged with the designated offenses to be excluded, per se, from the application of the statute. See White Oak Corporation v. Department of Transportation, 217 Conn. 281, 301, 585 A.2d 1199 (1991) (). In view of the absence of a specific legislative directive to the contrary, therefore, we conclude that a defendant charged with the sale of narcotics under § 21a-278(b) is not per se ineligible for AR under § 54-56e. 7
As for the state's claim that the phrase "not of a serious nature" in § 54-56e renders the AR provisions inapplicable to a defendant charged with the unclassified felony of sale of narcotics under § 21a-278(b) unless the defendant demonstrates that the circumstances attendant to the crime were not of a serious nature, we reject the claim due to the irrational result that would follow from an adoption of the state's construction of § 54-56e. In addition to the "not of a serious nature" language upon which the state isolatedly focuses, § 54-56e provides in pertinent part: "Unless good cause is shown, this section shall not be applicable to persons accused of a class A, class B, or class C felony...." This provision logically implies its converse, that is, § 54-56e shall apply to alleged class A, B, or C felony offenders upon a showing of "good cause." If a showing of "good cause" is sufficient to secure the application of § 54-56e to a defendant accused of a class A felony, it would hardly be rational, considering our felony classification and sentencing scheme, to hold a defendant charged with the unclassified felony of sale of narcotics to any other test. The purpose underlying the felony sentencing scheme embodied in General Statutes § 53a-35, which is substantially similar to that of General Statutes § 53a-35a, was "to eliminate the kind of irrationally disparate sentences which often existed in prior law between essentially similarly serious crimes, and irrationally similar sentences between crimes of greatly varying seriousness, and to substitute therefor a system which will, as nearly as possible, treat essentially the same similarly serious kinds of conduct." Commentary, Commission to Revise the Criminal Statutes (1969) pp. 9-10. Consequently, the prime index of the gravity of a particular crime is the length of the statutorily authorized prison term that a defendant convicted of the crime may be required to serve.
Under § 53a-35a(2), a defendant convicted of the class A felony of murder may be sentenced to a maximum term of "life imprisonment," defined in pertinent part by General Statutes § 53a-35b as "a definite sentence of sixty years...." The maximum prison sentence authorized under § 21a-278(b) by comparison, is twenty years, the same maximum sentence that can be imposed upon a defendant convicted of a class B felony. See General Statutes § 53a-35a(4). From the disparity between these maximum sentences, it is evident that the legislature viewed the act criminalized under § 21a-278(b) to be as serious as the various acts punishable as class B felonies, and to be less serious than the act of murder punishable as a class A felony. An endorsement of the state's interpretation of § 54-56e would therefore replicate in the AR context the "irrationally disparate" treatment of "similarly serious kinds of conduct" that the legislature sought to eliminate by streamlining the felony classification and sentencing scheme. Commentary, Commission to Revise the Criminal Statutes, supra. Our duty to reconcile the separate parts of a statute as far as possible; Statewide Grievance Committee v. Rozbicki, 211 Conn. 232, 241, 558 A.2d 986 (1989); and to construe statutes in a manner that produces an overall reasonable interpretation; Kaeser v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 218 Conn. 438, 443, 589 A.2d 1229 (1991); requires that we reject the state's proposed interpretation of § 54-56e. We accordingly conclude that a defendant charged with the crime of sale of narcotics under § 21a-278(b), an unclassified felony necessarily of a less "serious nature" than the class A felony of murder, need not demonstrate anything other than "good cause" in order to fall within the application of § 54-56e. 8 In determining whether "good cause" has been satisfactorily shown, a court appropriately may consider the circumstances surrounding the particular crime with which the applicant has been charged.
Turning to the circumstances of the present case, we are unpersuaded by the state's contention that the court abused its discretion...
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