72 Conn. App. 127 | Conn. App. Ct. | 2002
The defendant, Kevin J. Hackett, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of operating a motor vehicle while his operator’s license was under suspension in violation of General Statutes § 1.4-215
The jury reasonably could have found the following relevant facts. Shortly before 7 p.m. on January 20,2001, Alice Ventresca was getting out of a taxicab near her apartment building at 45 Savings Street in Waterbury. She heard a crash and an automobile engine stop running. She then went to the lobby of her building and saw the defendant, who she knew lived in the same building, getting out of the driver’s side of his automobile. He passed her in the lobby and entered an elevator after assuring her that he was all right, despite the large lump that she observed on his head. Ventresca, fearing that the defendant had a concussion, called the police and showed them the car because she feared that someone else had been injured in the crash. She also noticed that the left rear taillight of the defendant’s automobile was lit.
Patrolman David McKnight of the Waterbury police department was dispatched to 45 Savings Street and spoke with several individuals who informed him that there had been an accident. After observing the car, which was “fairly damaged,” he went to the defendant’s apartment. After first denying that he had been in an accident, the defendant admitted that he had been operating the automobile. At that time, the defendant’s operator’s license was under suspension from December 17, 2000, through December 17, 2003.
In an amended information, the defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle in a parking
On June 13, 2001, the jury found the defendant guilty. After further testimony, the jury found him guilty on part B of the information, which charged him with having violated § 14-215 (c) in that he had operated a motor vehicle while his license was under suspension pursuant to General Statutes § 14-227b. The defendant’s subsequent motions for a judgment of acquittal as to both charges and for a new trial were denied. The court sentenced the defendant to thirty days incarceration.
We conclude that one whose operator’s license is under suspension violates § 14-215 whenever he operates a motor vehicle, regardless of whether it is operated on public or private property. We reach that conclusion after engaging in the two step process required for interpretation of criminal statutes. “Statutory construction . . . presents a question of law over which our review is plenary. . . . According to our long-standing principles of statutory [interpretation], our fundamental objective is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature. ... In determining the intent of a statute, we look to the words of the statute itself, to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter. . . . Once we ascertain the proper meaning of the statute, we then must undertake due process analysis to assess whether this meaning was apparent enough so as to give the defendant fair warning that his conduct was proscribed.” (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Vickers, 260 Conn. 219, 223-24, 796 A.2d 502 (2002). Not only do we conclude that the words of § 14-215 (a) should be given their plain meaning, but we conclude also that the
Section 14-215 (a) provides in relevant part: “No person to whom an operator’s license has been refused, or whose operator’s license or right to operate a motor vehicle . . . has been suspended or revoked, shall operate any motor vehicle during the period of such refusal, suspension or revocation. ...” (Emphasis added.) Mindful that “[w]ords in a statute must be given their plain and ordinary meaning . . . unless the context indicates that a different meaning was intended”; (internal quotation marks omitted) id., 224; we conclude that the § 14-215 (a) prohibits absolutely all operation of a motor vehicle, without limitation.
In reaching that conclusion, we note that other statutes in the same chapter of our General Statutes limit their applicability to specified roadways. See General Statutes § 14-212a (highway construction or utility work zones); General Statutes § 14-212b (school zone); General Statutes § 14-216 (highway); General Statutes § 14-218a (public highway, road of specially chartered municipal association or district, parking area, private road with established speed limit, school property); General Statutes § 14-219 (highway; road; parking area for ten or more cars; multiple lane, limited access highway); General Statutes § 14-220 (limited access divided highway, other highway); General Statutes § 14-221 (highway); General Statutes § 14-222 (public highway, road of specially chartered municipal association or district, parking area for ten or more cars, private road with established speed limit, school property); General Statutes § 14-224 (c) and (d) (public highway, limited access highway); General Statutes § 14-225 (public street or highway, parking area for ten or more cars, school property); General Statutes § 14-227a (public highway, road of specially chartered municipal association or district, parking area for ten or more cars, private
The defendant argues that because General Statutes § 14-36 (a) requires that one needs an operator’s license for the operation of a motor vehicle only on a “public
“[W]e are not bound by the precedent of the statutory Appellate Division of the Circuit Court”; State v. Hyatt, 9 Conn. App. 426, 430, 519 A.2d 612 (1987); although we may find it persuasive. See, e.g., State v. Johnson, 28 Conn. App. 708, 717, 613 A.2d 1344 (1992), aff'd, 227 Conn. 534, 630 A.2d 1059 (1993). We are not persuaded by Haight. There, the defendant appealed from the judgment of conviction for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor in violation of General Statutes § 14-227, now § 14-227a, and operating a motor vehicle while his license was under suspension in violation of § 14-215. State v. Haight, supra, 2 Conn. Cir. Ct. 80. He argued that neither statute applied because he was operating his motor vehicle in a private parking lot. Id. Although both statutes prohibited the “operation” of a motor vehicle without qualification, the court affirmed the judgment of conviction under § 14-227 as consistent with precedent; see State v. Piette, 16 Conn. Sup. 357 (1949); but reversed the judgment as to the conviction under § 14-215 for the reasons that the defendant in this case now urges us to adopt. See State v. Haight, supra, 81-82. We conclude that the plain language of the statute is more convincing than the Haight analysis.
We also conclude that our interpretation of § 14-215 (a) does not violate the defendant’s right to due process. As previously stated, the purpose of due process analysis is to determine whether the defendant had fair warning that his conduct was prohibited. See State v. Vickers,
We decline to afford extensive review to the defendant’s claim that his conviction should be reversed on the ground of plain error because of the mistaken belief of the parties and the court that the lot being open for “public use” was an element of § 14-215 (a). See Practice Book § 60-5. First, we are not required to review the defendant’s claim at all, as it was raised only briefly at oral argument and without analysis. See State v. Webb, 238 Conn. 389, 468 n.56, 680 A.2d 147 (1996). We do note, however, that the court’s charge required the jury to find that “[o]ne, that the defendant was operating a motor vehicle at the time and place alleged, two, that he was operating this motor vehicle in a parking area for ten or more cars
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
General Statutes § 14-215 provides: “(a)Noperson to whom an operator’s license has been refused, or whose operator’s license or right to operate a motor vehicle in this state has been suspended or revoked, shall operate any motor vehicle during the period of such refusal, suspension or revocation. No person shall operate or cause to be operated any motor vehicle, the registration of which has been refused, suspended or revoked, or any motor vehicle, the right to operate which has been suspended or revoked.
“(b) Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section, any person who violates any provision of subsection (a) of this section shall be fined not less than one hundred fifty dollars nor more than two hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than ninety days or be both fined and imprisoned for the first offense, and for any subsequent offense shall be fined not less than two hundred dollars nor more than six hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned.
“(c) Any person who operates any motor vehicle during the period his operator’s license or right to operate a motor vehicle in this state is under suspension or revocation on account of a violation of subsection (a) of section 14-227a or section 53a-56b or 53a-60d or pursuant to section 14-227b, shall be fined not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than one year, and, in the absence of any mitigating circumstances as determined by the court, thirty consecutive days of the sentence imposed may not be suspended or reduced in any manner. The court shall specifically state in writing for the record the mitigating circumstances, or the absence thereof.”
The defendant’s sentence was to run concurrently with a sentence that he previously had received.
In charging on the second element, the court instructed the jury in relevant part as follows: “The law defines ‘parking area’ as lots, areas or other accommodations for the parking of motor vehicles off the street or highway and open to the public use with or without charge.
“Now, with regard to that, open to the public. For an area to be open to the public, it does not have to be open to everybody all the time. The essential feature of public use is that it is not confined to a privileged individual. It is not confined to privileged individuals or groups whose fitness or eligibility is gauged by some predetermined criteria, but is open to the indefinite public. It is the indefiniteness or unrestricted quality of potential users that gives a use its public character. Any parking lot which the general public has access to is a public parking lot for purposes of this case.”