Bennett v. Commissioner of Correction, 182 Conn. App. 541

Background

Calvin Bennett was convicted by a three-judge court of felony murder, home invasion, and first-degree burglary; direct appeal affirmed in part and reversed on one count; Bennett served a 60-year sentence.
Bennett filed an amended habeas petition claiming trial counsel Lawrence Hopkins rendered ineffective assistance, principally for failing to adequately challenge eyewitness identifications (Samantha Bright and Emilia Caffrey) and for not calling an expert on eyewitness reliability.
At the habeas trial Bennett offered legal expert Lisa Steele, who relied in part on testimony from a Porter hearing in his codefendant Maner’s later trial (where psychologist Steven Penrod testified) and sought to introduce that Porter transcript as a full exhibit; the habeas court excluded the transcript as a full exhibit.
The habeas court found Hopkins did not perform deficiently: he cross-examined the eyewitnesses vigorously, had no reasonable grounds to suppress the in-court identifications under the controlling law at trial, and reasonably declined to call an expert given prevailing precedent.
Bennett sought certification to appeal the habeas denial; the habeas court refused. Bennett appealed the certification denial and the underlying rulings.

Issues

Issue	Bennett's Argument	Commissioner’s Argument	Held
Did the habeas court abuse its discretion in denying certification to appeal?	Issues are debatable among jurists and could be resolved differently, so certification should be granted.	The issues are not debatable; denial was within discretion.	Denial affirmed: petitioner failed to show issues were debatable or likely to be resolved differently.
Should the Porter transcript from Maner’s trial have been admitted as a full exhibit?	Transcript is relevant to show the basis for Steele’s opinions about eyewitness science and should have been admitted or judicially noticed.	Transcript is hearsay and unnecessary because Steele testified extensively; judicial notice was not appropriate.	Exclusion affirmed: court did not abuse discretion; transcript was hearsay, judicial notice inappropriate, and Steele’s testimony covered the substance.
Did Hopkins perform deficiently by failing to move to suppress Bright’s in-court identification?	Hopkins should have moved to suppress because Bright failed to ID from photo array but later ID’d in court.	Under controlling pretrial law, there were no grounds to suppress; cross-examination was the appropriate remedy.	No deficiency: suppression motion was not warranted under then-governing law (Smith); Hopkins effectively cross-examined.
Was counsel ineffective for not calling an eyewitness-identification expert or pursuing other cross-examination strategies later endorsed by cases like Guilbert/Dickson?	An expert (and emphasis on factors such as stress, lighting, cross-racial ID) would have undermined reliability.	At the time of trial, precedent disfavored such experts (Kemp); use of cross-examination was reasonable strategy.	No deficiency: counsel’s performance judged by law and standards existing at trial; later-rule developments do not show prior ineffective assistance.

Key Cases Cited

State v. Bennett, 307 Conn. 758 (Conn. 2013) (direct appeal recounting facts and convictions)
State v. Porter, 241 Conn. 57 (Conn. 1997) (framework for Porter hearings on expert testimony)
State v. Ledbetter, 275 Conn. 534 (Conn. 2005) (identification-law authority discussed by habeas expert)
State v. Marquez, 291 Conn. 122 (Conn. 2009) (identification and photographic array precedent)
State v. Guilbert, 306 Conn. 218 (Conn. 2012) (overruled Kemp; recognized limits of juror knowledge re: eyewitness reliability)
State v. Dickson, 322 Conn. 410 (Conn. 2016) (held in-court identifications require prescreening; applied prospectively)
State v. Smith, 200 Conn. 465 (Conn. 1986) (pre-Dickson law: in-court IDs admissible; weight for jury via cross-examination)
State v. Kemp, 199 Conn. 473 (Conn. 1986) (court noted expert testimony on eyewitness ID generally disfavored)