State v. LawrenceState v. Lawrence
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Dranginis
Lead Opinion
Opinion
DRANGINIS, J.The defendant, Tarrance Lawrence, appeals1 from the judgment of the trial court dismissing his motion to correct an illegal sentence, filed pursuant to
The defendant was charged with one count each of murder in violation of
The defendant subsequently filed in the trial court a motion to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to
The crux of the defendant’s claim on appeal is that he was convicted of the wrong crime. He argues that, had he been convicted of the correct crime, namely, manslaughter in the first degree, his sentence of imprisonment could not have exceeded twenty years. He claims, therefore, that, because he was sentenced to thirty-five years imprisonment, his sentence exceeds *769the statutory maximum permitted under the sentencing statute. The claim of an illegal sentence, then, is dependent on the claim of a wrongful conviction. As long as the defendant stands convicted of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm, his sentence of thirty-five years imprisonment is valid and legal.4 The question the defendant’s appeal presents to this court, therefore, is whether
“Jurisdiction involves the power in a court to hear and determine the cause of action presented to it and its source is the constitutional and statutory provisions by which it is created.” Connecticut State Employees Assn., Inc. v. Connecticut Personnel Policy Board, 165 Conn. 448, 456, 334 A.2d 909 (1973); see Andrew Ansaldi Co. v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 207 Conn. 67, 73, 540 A.2d 59 (1988) (Shea, J., concurring). “Article fifth, § 1 of the Connecticut constitution proclaims that [t]he powers and jurisdiction of the courts *770shall be defined by law, and
“It is well established that under the common law a trial court has the discretionary power to modify or vacate a criminal judgment before the sentence has been executed. . . . This is so because the court loses jurisdiction over the case when the defendant is committed to the custody of the commissioner of correction and begins serving the sentence.” (Citations omitted.) Id., 431-32. There are a limited number of circumstances in which the legislature has conferred on the trial courts “continuing jurisdiction to act on their judgments after the commencement of sentence .... See, e.g.,
In this case, the defendant’s conviction has been finalized on direct appeal. The defendant has not cited, nor have we found, any statutory or constitutional grant of continuing jurisdiction that would permit a trial court to review his conviction prior to his filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The defendant, therefore, relies on our rules of practice authorizing a defendant, by way of a motion, to request that the court correct his allegedly illegal sentence as a way of challenging his conviction under an improper statute.6 We have recog*772nized that there is no legislative or constitutional grant of jurisdiction to give the court power to consider the defendant’s claim. Unless, therefore, his claim properly fits within the common-law confines of jurisdiction to correct an illegal sentence, this motion to correct can provide him with no recourse or relief.
Under the common law, the court has continuing jurisdiction to correct an illegal sentence. See, e.g., Bozza v. United States, 330 U.S. 160, 166, 67 S. Ct. 645, 91 L. Ed. 818 (1947) (“an excessive sentence should be corrected . . . by an appropriate amendment of the invalid sentence by the court of original jurisdiction”); Murphy v. Massachusetts, 177 U.S. 155, 157, 20 S. Ct. 639, 44 L. Ed. 711 (1900) (“in many jurisdictions it has been held that the appellate court has the power, when there has been an erroneous sentence, to remand the case to the trial court for sentence according to law”); In re Bonner, 151 U.S. 242, 259-60, 14 S. Ct. 323, 38 L. Ed. 149 (1894) (“where the conviction is correct . . . there does not seem to be any good reason why jurisdiction of the prisoner should not be reassumed by the court that imposed the sentence in order that its defect may be corrected”). That common-law grant of jurisdiction has been codified for the federal courts in rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.7 Hill v. *773United States, 368 U.S. 424, 430 n.8, 82 S. Ct. 468, 7 L. Ed. 2d 417 (1962). In Connecticut, that grant of jurisdiction is recognized and the procedure by which it may be invoked is regulated by
Connecticut has recognized two types of circumstances in which the court has jurisdiction to review a claimed illegal sentence. The first of those is when the sentence itself is illegal, namely, when the sentence “either exceeds the relevant statutory maximum limits, violates a defendant’s right against double jeopardy, *774is ambiguous, or is internally contradictory.” State v. McNellis, 15 Conn. App. 416, 443-44, 546 A.2d 292, cert. denied, 209 Conn. 809, 548 A.2d 441 (1988); see also United States v. Pavlico, 961 F.2d 440, 443 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 848, 113 S. Ct. 144, 121 L. Ed. 2d 96 (1992). The other circumstance in which a claimed illegal sentence may be reviewed is that in which the sentence is within the relevant statutory limits but was “imposed in a way which violates defendant’s right . . . to be addressed personally at sentencing and to speak in mitigation of punishment . . . or his right to be sentenced by a judge relying on accurate information or considerations solely in the record, or his right that the government keep its plea agreement promises . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. McNellis, supra, 444; see also United States v. Guevremont, 829 F.2d 423, 427 (3d Cir. 1987).10 Both types of illegal sen*775tence claims share the requirement that the sentencing proceeding, and not the trial leading to conviction, be the subject of the attack. Such has been the understanding of the federal courts since the matter first was discussed by the United States Supreme Court in Hill v. United States, supra, 368 U.S. 424, in which Justice Black, in dissent, recognized that extending rule 35 to cover sentences imposed in an illegal manner “does not of course mean that Rule 35 permits attack upon a sentence based upon mere trial errors. Rule 35 applies to any ‘illegal sentence,’ not to any illegal conviction, and thus by its terms the Rule protects only those rights which a defendant retains even if the judgment of guilt against him is proper.” (Emphasis added.) Id., 432 n.2 (Black, J., dissenting). This court adopted that same understanding of the common-law right to challenge an illegal sentence in State v. Mollo, 63 Conn. App. 487, 491, 776 A.2d 1176, cert. denied, 257 Conn. 904, 777 A.2d 194 (2001), in which we recognized that “the relief allowed by
The essence of the defendant’s claim is that he was convicted of the wrong crime. He does not claim, nor *776could he, that the sentence he received exceeded the maximum statutory limits for the sentence prescribed for the crime for which he was convicted. The defendant also does not claim that he was denied due process at his sentencing hearing or that his sentence is ambiguous or internally contradictory. If the defendant’s claim were to fall into any of those categories,
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion LAVERY, C. J., and SCHALLER, BISHOP, DiPENTIMA and HARPER, Js., concurred.
Notes
This appeal originally was argued on September 21, 2004, before a panel of three members of this court, which reversed the trial court’s judgment dismissing the defendant’s motion to correct an illegal sentence and remanded the matter to the trial court with direction to deny the defendant’s motion. State v. Lawrence, 86 Conn. App. 784, 863 A.2d 235 (2005). Thereafter, we granted the motions filed by both the state and the defendant for reconsideration en banc.
Because we conclude that the court properly determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to consider the defendant’s motion, we do not decide the merits of the defendant’s claim that his conviction of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm was improper. This claim would have been proper for review in the defendant’s direct appeal. The defendant also has conceded that the dismissal of his motion, and the unsuccessful appeal therefrom, provide him with the avenue of a further collateral attack on the conviction via a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. See footnote 11 of this opinion.
The defendant essentially requests this court to remand this case with direction that, on the current conviction of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm, the court shall not impose a sentence of more than twenty years incarceration. This limitation, however, is governed by no statutory authority. For the defendant to receive the relief he requests, this court would have to vacate his conviction of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm and remand the case to the trial court with direction that it impose on the defendant a judgment of conviction of manslaughter in the first degree. Only then would the defendant be assured that, pursuant to the legally operative sentencing statute, he could receive only a twenty year sentence.
We note that the continuing jurisdiction that the court may have to modify a judgment is separate and distinct from the continuing jurisdiction that the court has to enter further orders enforcing its judgment, which may derive from the court’s inherent power to vindicate judgments. See AvalonBay Communities, Inc. v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 260 Conn. 232, 241, 796 A.2d 1164 (2002).
The dissent cites State v. Waterman, 264 Conn. 484, 489 n.6, 825 A.2d 63 (2003), for the proposition that the criminal conviction and sentence are one and the same. This statement was incidental to the holding in Waterman, which considered whether the imposition of a sexual offender registration requirement after the defendant had begun serving his sentence constituted an alteration in that sentence. Id., 497-98. More importantly, the case on which Waterman relied for this statement, State v. Seravalli, 189 Conn. 201, 205, 455 A.2d 852, cert. dismissed, 461 U.S. 920, 103 S. Ct. 2076, 77 L. Ed. 2d 291 (1983), specifically considered what act by the court in a criminal case constituted a final judgment for purposes of appeal. The Seravalli court concluded that the imposition of the sentence, which would conclude the trial court proceedings in any given case, served as the judgment of conviction, and thereby the final judgment, for appeal purposes. This does not translate, however, into the theory that every challenge to a criminal sentence also is a challenge to the underlying conviction. A perfect example is State v. Barksdale, 79 Conn. App. 126, 829 A.2d 911 (2003), in which the defendant was convicted of sexual assault in the second degree in violation of
Connecticut law most closely resembles the version of rule 35 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that was in existence between 1966 and 1984. That rule provided: “Correction of sentence. The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time and may correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner within the time provided herein for the reduction of sentence.”
Unlike the federal rules, which have been amended pursuant to congressional action; see United States v. Cook, 890 F.2d 672, 674-75 (4th Cir. 1989); our rules of practice are promulgated by the Superior Court of this state and, as such, cannot abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right. See
“Practice Book rules do not ordinarily define subject matter jurisdiction.
The original language of rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, enacted in 1943, referred only to illegal sentences, not sentences imposed in an illegal manner. The United States Supreme Court interpreted that rule in Hill v. United States, supra, 368 U.S. 424, and foreclosed relief for claims of sentences imposed in an illegal manner. The rule then was amended in 1966 to provide that relief, at least for a specified period of time. Connecticut law can be understood to follow either the version of rule 35 as it existed between 1966 and 1984 or the position of the dissent in Hill, which stated: “I would have thought that a sentence imposed in an illegal manner — whether the amount or form of the punishment meted out constitutes an additional violation of law or not — would be recognized as an illegal sentence under any normal reading of the English language. And precisely this sort of common-sense understanding of the language of
We recognize that there is a conflict regarding the extent to which a court has jurisdiction to entertain a motion to correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner. Compare State v. Francis, 69 Conn. App. 378, 793 A.2d 1224, cert. denied, 260 Conn. 935, 802 A.2d 88, cert. denied, 537 U.S. 1056, 123 S. Ct. 630, 154 L. Ed. 2d 536 (2002), with State v. Pagan, 75 Conn. App. 423, *775816 A.2d 635, cert. denied, 265 Conn. 901, 829 A.2d 420 (2003). That question is not before us today, and we therefore decline to decide it. We merely note that even if we were to take the more expansive view of Pagan, the defendant’s claim still does not fall within the confines of a sentence imposed in an illegal manner.
In his brief and at oral argument, the defendant claimed that, regardless of whether relief was granted, our Supreme Court’s decision in Cobham v. Commissioner of Correction, 258 Conn. 30, 779 A.2d 80 (2001), required him to bring a motion to correct an illegal sentence prior to petitioning the court for a writ of habeas corpus. Although it is true that Cobham requires a defendant challenging the legality of his sentence to bring a motion to correct that sentence prior to petitioning the court for a writ of habeas corpus, it does not place that requirement on an individual who, like the defendant, is challenging the legality of his conviction.
Dissenting Opinion
join, dissenting. I respectfully dissent. The majority construes the motion to correct an illegal sentence filed by the defendant, Tarrance Lawrence, and brought pursuant to
In my opinion, subject matter jurisdiction to review the merits of the defendant’s motion exists pursuant to
The principal issues of this appeal concern subject matter jurisdiction and the scope of
The defendant claims in his motion that once he was found not guilty of murder because he was found to be under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance, he could not be convicted, legally, of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm in violation of
The only issue presented by this appeal is whether, indulging every presumption in favor of jurisdiction, the court had jurisdiction or authority, pursuant to
A purely conceptual beginning is that “[i]t is axiomatic that, in a criminal case, the sentence imposed by the court constitutes the judgment of conviction.” State v. Waterman, 264 Conn. 484, 489 n.6, 825 A.2d 63 (2003). It follows, as a matter of logical necessity, that every motion claiming relief pursuant to
In State v. Cator, 256 Conn. 785, 781 A.2d 285 (2001), the Supreme Court addressed the scope of
Rejecting the defendant’s argument, the court noted that “[o]f course, a defendant cannot be punished twice for the same crime. When the trial court has imposed two sentences for the same offense, the appropriate action is to merge the two convictions and to vacate one of the sentences.” (Emphasis added.) Id. The Supreme Court concluded that “the trial court had jurisdiction to correct the defendant’s sentences pursuant to
It is noteworthy that in Cator, the Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s reliance on State v. Luzietti, 230 Conn. 427, 431-34, 646 A.2d 85 (1994), for the proposition that the court was without jurisdiction to correct his sentence because at “common law, once a defendant has begun serving his sentence, the trial court no longer has jurisdiction to alter its judgment in the absence of a legislative or constitutional grant of continuing jurisdiction. Id., 431.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Cator, supra, 256 Conn. 804. The court expressly held that “the trial court had jurisdiction to alter the sentence pursuant to
In State v. Raucci, 21 Conn. App. 557, 575 A.2d 234, cert. denied, 215 Conn. 817, 576 A.2d 546 (1990), the defendant filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to
“In April, 1987, subsequent to the defendant’s sentencing, [this court] held in State v. Stellato, 10 Conn. App. 447, 456-57, 523 A.2d 1345 (1987), that where a defendant is tried on multiple conspiracy counts arising out of a single agreement, the trial court must render judgment and sentence the defendant on only that conspiracy to commit the most serious offense. . . . On the basis of Stellato, the defendant moved, pursuant to
“The defendant also moved that the total effective sentence be reduced to not less than twelve and one-half or more than twenty-five years, by eliminating the term originally imposed on the vacated conviction, namely, not less than two and one-half nor more than five years, and leaving intact the sentences imposed for the three remaining convictions.” Id. Declining the defendant’s invitation, the court “resentenced the defendant on the three remaining counts so as to reflect *783its original sentencing intent, and reimposed a total effective sentence of not less than fifteen nor more than thirty years.” Id. The defendant appealed, claiming that “the trial court had no authority to increase a valid sentence once its execution had commenced . . . .” Id., 560.
The principal issue facing this court in Raucci concerned the court’s power to resentence a defendant on the granting of a motion to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to
In State v. Barksdale, 79 Conn. App. 126, 829 A.2d 911 (2003), this court recognized that
Barksdale stands for the seemingly obvious and uncontroversial proposition that a sentence is illegal within the meaning of
That latter scenario is precisely the type of claim that the defendant asserts. The defendant claims only that the court could not, as a matter of law, accept a verdict of guilty of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm in violation of
It is worth stressing that Cator and Raucci can be construed as attempts to use
The case of State v. Raucci, supra, 21 Conn. App. 557, is an example of the use of
In this case, unlike State v. Motto, 63 Conn. App. 487, 776 A.2d 1176, cert. denied, 257 Conn. 904, 777 A.2d 194 (2001), on which the majority relies, the defendant takes no issue with the underlying factual basis that resulted in the conviction against him. Rather, he asserts that, as a matter of law, the only crime for which a judgment of conviction and sentence could stand, in light of a finding of not guilty of murder by reason of extreme emotional disturbance, is manslaughter in the first degree, which carries a maximum twenty year sentence. If the defendant is correct, he has been sentenced to fifteen years more than he should serve if the legally operative statute had been used to convict and sentence him.
In Cobham v. Commissioner of Correction, supra, 258 Conn. 37, the petitioner, in a habeas corpus petition, stated that he had entered pleas in accordance with a plea agreement and that his mittimus varied from the sentence of the court. The petitioner contended that he was incarcerated in accordance with an illegal sentence and requested the habeas court to correct his sentence to eliminate the disparity, although he did not seek to vacate his plea or reverse his conviction. Id., 35-36. The court held that before seeking to correct an illegal sentence in the habeas court, a defendant must raise the issue on direct appeal or in a motion under
The only question to be resolved by the majority in this case is whether the court had the authority to adjudicate the type of controversy presented by the motion before it. The ultimate viability of the defendant’s claim is irrelevant to the issue of whether the court has subject matter jurisdiction.1 “Once it is determined that a tribunal has authority or competence to *788decide the class of cases to which the action belongs, the issue of subject matter jurisdiction is resolved in favor of entertaining the action. . . . It is well established that, in determining whether a court has subject matter jurisdiction, every presumption favoring jurisdiction should be indulged.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Olympus Healthcare Group, Inc. v. Muller, supra, 88 Conn. App. 300. In this case, especially in light of Cator, Raucci and Barksdale, the defendant has raised a claim that belongs to the class of cases over which the court has jurisdiction.
For all of the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.
If, as I conclude, the court had jurisdiction to entertain the claims of the defendant, the next question would be whether the defendant was entitled to the relief of a corrected sentence. I note briefly that I do not agree with the defendant that his sentence is illegal.