Lead Opinion
The defendant, Brandon Montrell Bellamy, appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court affirming his conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of two counts of murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a (a), and one count each of assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a) (5), criminal possession of a pistol in violation of General Statutes § 53a-217c (a), and carrying a pistol without a permit in violation of General Statutes § 29-35. The defendant claims that the Appellate Court incorrectly determined that he waived his unpreserved jury instruction claim under the rule established in
State
v.
Kitchens
,
I
We begin with the defendant's waiver claim. The defendant contends that the trial court's instruction on identification witnesses was deficient because it did not inform the jury that the certainty of a witness' identification does not mean that the identification is accurate, or that factors such as distance, lighting, a witness' emotional state and the time between the crime and the witness identification are also relevant in considering the accuracy of an identification. The state responds that defense counsel indicated that he understood and accepted the trial court's proposed instruction, and, therefore, the defendant's
claim is unreviewable under the waiver rule in
Kitchens
. We agree with the state that the defendant's claim is unreviewable.
On Monday, November 8, following conclusion of the evidence, the trial court stated for the record that it was going to meet with counsel in chambers for "a legal charging conference." The court explained: "[I]t's the actual law the court is going to give tomorrow as it relates to the charges themselves and any kind of law that would apply to this case based on identification witnesses, inconsistent testimony, etc., charges that need to go to the jury in order to complete the record of the case." The court added that it would try to incorporate any specific requests by counsel into the proposed charge. The court also indicated that it had given counsel copies of the court's proposed general and specific instructions. A brief recess followed, during which the court consulted with counsel in chambers.
After the recess, the court described the proceeding to follow as "our legal session for the charging conference." The court first observed that it had given counsel for both sides copies of the proposed general instructions. It then described certain changes unrelated to the identification issue that it intended to make in response to requests by counsel, adding that it also intended to change the instructions to read that it was the state's burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had committed the charged crimes, to which defense counsel specifically assented. The court next discussed the proposed identification instruction, explaining: "With respect to identification, I did give an identification section in the charge which outlines on page 14 that the jur[ors] must be satisfied in making the identification, including some of the factors they can consider in this evidence. However, I'm going to expand that language to include ... language to the effect that, in every criminal prosecution, it is the state's responsibility to show that the defendant is the person who committed the offense, and if they are not satisfied of that evidence, then they cannot find the defendant guilty of any particular offense. I'm going to highlight that because, obviously, that is an issue in this case." The court also indicated its willingness to change language in the proposed instructions referring to the possession of a weapon, as suggested by defense counsel. After the court asked if there were any other exceptions, defense counsel responded: "Not at this time, Your Honor." The court replied: "Okay, I appreciate your coming back up, and, with that, because the charge is now complete, we can go right to the jury .... Okay?" Defense counsel simply responded: "Thank you, Your Honor." The court then adjourned for the day.
When the proceeding resumed the next morning, the court initially noted that it had conducted an on-the-record charging conference the previous day, during which it had made certain changes to the jury instructions suggested by counsel. The court also clarified that the jury instructions would contain no reference to lesser included offenses, and both counsel agreed that this was appropriate. After the court asked if there was "[a]nything else" of concern the parties wanted to discuss before the jury was brought into the courtroom, counsel responded: "Nothing from [the] defense, Your Honor." The jury then returned to the courtroom, and the court delivered its instructions.
The trial court's jury instructions addressed the issue of identification two different times. The court first addressed the identification issue indirectly when it instructed the jury regarding how to decide whether to believe a witness' testimony.
The defendant was convicted on all counts. On January 7, 2011, the court held a sentencing hearing. At the hearing, defense counsel initially argued in support of three postverdict motions the defendant had filed to arrest judgment, for judgment of acquittal, and for a new trial. In his argument, counsel stated that all three motions were based principally on the allegedly rapid speed with which the jury instructions had been delivered. Counsel specifically argued: "[I]t's not the content of the jury instructions. The jury instruction says we went through the charging conference. We conferred. We agreed on them. I didn't take any exceptions. The issue I had, Your Honor, was the speed with [which] the court went through the instructions to the jury." Counsel indicated that the speed of the instructions was important because it affected the jurors' ability to follow them. The court denied all three motions, reasoning that "the jur[ors] did have the benefit of the actual transcript of the court's instructions going in with them in their deliberative process."
Thereafter, the defendant appealed from the judgment of conviction.
On appeal to this court, the defendant contends that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that he waived his claim of instructional error. We disagree. In
Kitchens
, we stated: "[W]hen the trial court provides counsel with a copy of the proposed jury instructions, allows a meaningful opportunity for their review, solicits comments from counsel regarding changes or modifications and counsel affirmatively accepts the instructions proposed or given, the defendant may be deemed to have knowledge of any potential flaws therein and to have waived implicitly the constitutional right to challenge the instructions on direct appeal. Such a determination by the reviewing court must be based on a close examination of the record and the particular facts and circumstances of each case."
In the present case, all of the foregoing criteria were satisfied. The trial court gave both defense counsel and the state a copy of its proposed jury instructions four days before the charging conference. Two of the four days fell on a weekend, thus providing counsel with even more time to review the instructions. The court also solicited comments from counsel regarding modifications to the instructions during the in-chambers charging conference, during the proceedings in open court directly after the charging conference and on the following day immediately before instructing the jury. In addition, when the court discussed portions of the identification instruction on the record, defense counsel expressed no dissatisfaction with the instruction, although he commented on several other instructions. Counsel thus indicated that he had read and understood the instructions in their entirety and took no issue with any part, including the instruction on identification. Finally, defense counsel explicitly conceded during the sentencing hearing that he had agreed with the substance of the jury instructions before they were given and that his only objection was to the speed with which they had been delivered by the court. Accordingly, we conclude that the defendant implicitly waived his jury instruction claim under the rule articulated in Kitchens .
Notwithstanding these compelling facts, the defendant claims that he did not agree to the trial court's identification instruction. He contends that, in the absence of a marked copy of the jury instructions, there is no evidence in the record that defense counsel reviewed and approved of the precise language of the identification instruction. He also notes that, although the trial court stated during the on-the-record charging conference that it intended to broaden and expand on the language in the proposed instruction, there is no evidence that defense counsel had an opportunity to review and approve of the revised instruction before it was given. He thus argues that defense counsel's statement at the sentencing hearing that he agreed with the content of the jury instructions "cannot be reconciled" with the state's burden of establishing waiver by showing that counsel reviewed the precise language being challenged on appeal, especially in light of counsel's claim at the hearing regarding the speedy delivery of the instructions. We disagree.
We first observe that the waiver rule in
Kitchens
does not require that a copy of the proposed jury instructions be marked as an exhibit. It only requires evidence that the trial court gave the parties a "copy of the proposed jury instructions" and that the reviewing court's determination of implied waiver "be based on a close examination of the record and the particular facts and circumstances of each case."
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra,
Second, insofar as the defendant claims that he had no notice of the content of the final charge on witness identification because the court stated that it intended to "expand" that instruction, the defendant takes the trial court's language out of context and ignores the explanation that followed. What the court actually stated was that it intended to expand the language on page 14 of the proposed instructions "to include ... language to the effect that, in every criminal prosecution, it is the state's responsibility to show that the defendant is the person who committed the offense, and if [the jurors] are not satisfied of that
evidence, then they cannot find the defendant guilty of any particular offense. I'm going to highlight that because, obviously, that is an issue in this case." Accordingly, the trial court explained precisely how it intended to expand the language in the identification instruction and referred to the actual page on which the new language would be added. Furthermore, and as the Appellate Court noted, the only other change to the instructions even indirectly relating to witness identification was the court's addition of language instructing that the state had the burden to prove identity beyond a reasonable doubt;
State
v.
Bellamy
, supra,
As for the defendant's suggestion that defense counsel indicated during the sentencing hearing that he had trouble following the jury charge because of its speedy delivery, the record shows that counsel's reference to a speedy delivery at the hearing had nothing to do with his ability to understand, and thus object to, the instructions that were given. The record instead shows that counsel was referring to the jurors' possible inability to understand the instructions because of their speedy delivery. The defendant thus misconstrues counsel's argument at the sentencing hearing.
Finally, the cases on which the defendant relies are inapposite because their facts are distinguishable from the facts in the present case. See
State
v.
Davis
,
II
We next consider whether this court should overturn the waiver rule in
Kitchens
. The defendant contends that unpreserved claims of instructional error that satisfy the first two prongs of
Golding
should be considered by reviewing courts unless the error was induced or the claim was expressly waived by the challenging party. He specifically contends that
Kitchens
created an irrebuttable and incorrect presumption that all defense counsel who have had a meaningful opportunity to review draft jury instructions have knowledge of any and all constitutional errors contained therein, and that, through inaction or a silent record, all counsel are deemed under
Kitchens
to have waived a client's constitutional right to proper jury instructions for tactical reasons.
The state responds that the defendant misunderstands the meaning of the Kitchens waiver rule. The state argues that, when the trial court asks counsel to make an informed and binding judgment regarding whether to accept the jury instructions and counsel acquiesces, counsel waives the procedural right to object to the instructions on any of the multitude of possible grounds that counsel might presently be aware of or later perceive. Thus, "procedural waiver of the opportunity to object, by a professional who knew what was at stake, foreclosed any number of possible challenges that counsel might or might not have considered." The state further argues that this understanding of waiver comports with Connecticut's uncontroverted waiver doctrine and that overturning the rule would invalidate an entire body of waiver jurisprudence in this jurisdiction. The state maintains that the waiver rule in Kitchens is good policy because it gives parties an incentive to participate in the formulation of the jury instructions in a timely manner when errors can be corrected, thus promoting fair trials. We agree with the state.
We begin by noting that this court adopted the waiver rule in
Kitchens
in order to clarify the law and to encourage the formation of accurate jury instructions
consistent with the principles of fundamental fairness and the finality of judgments. To accomplish these objectives, the court explained that implied waiver may be found only after the trial court provides counsel with a written copy of the proposed instructions, allows counsel a meaningful opportunity to review them and solicits counsel's comments regarding proposed changes or modifications.
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 482-83,
In light of these considerations, we emphatically disagree with the notion that the implied waiver rule is fundamentally unfair because it is based on the presumption that counsel was aware of, and rejected as a matter of trial strategy, every conceivable challenge to the jury instructions. The rule is not unfair because, as the state correctly observed and we stated in
Kitchens
, what is waived is the procedural right to appeal any defect in the jury instructions. See id., at 483, 494,
Justice Palmer, writing for the court, explained in
Holness
that "[t]o conclude otherwise would require the trial court to canvass defense counsel with respect to counsel's understanding of the relevant constitutional principles before accepting counsel's agreement on how to proceed ... [and] there is nothing in our criminal law that supports such a requirement."
Our reasoning in
Kitchens
is also consistent with Connecticut and federal law governing a criminal defendant's waiver of other basic constitutional rights. These include the right to a jury trial; see,
e.g.,
State
v.
Rizzo
,
In sum, overturning
Kitchens
on the ground that waiver should be construed more narrowly would be inconsistent with
Holness
,
Brewer
and other cases in which we have indicated that counsel's approval of the jury instructions waives all potential claims of instructional error. We have observed, with respect to other errors during trial proceedings, that "[w]hat this court said over [100] years ago still remains true today. A defendant must avail himself of the opportunity to make an objection and if he does not avail himself of the opportunity, he must be [held] to a waiver of the objection. Otherwise he would be permitted to lie by and speculate upon the chances of a verdict, and that cannot
be tolerated." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
State
v.
Evans
,
The defendant nonetheless takes issue with all four policy grounds on which the court in
Kitchens
relied in concluding that the waiver rule is justified, including (1) the presumption that counsel is competent, (2) the rules of practice that provide for counsel's participation in the crafting of instructions, (3) the rules of fairness that place responsibility with the trial court and counsel to ensure that the instructions are correct, and (4) the existence of habeas review as a potential safety net. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 486-89,
First, to the extent the defendant contends that the Kitchens waiver rule presumes counsel is omniscient, rather than competent, and that the rule does not allow for consideration of possible distractions, fatigue, discouragement or simple ignorance, the defendant misunderstands the rule, the meaning of competent counsel and the ability of counsel to identify errors before the instructions are given. As we previously discussed in greater detail, waiver in the context of jury instruction claims, jury trials, probable cause hearings, guilty pleas, and claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and double jeopardy does not contemplate knowledge by trial counsel or the defendant of every conceivable claim that might be raised on appeal. Trial counsel thus need not be omniscient under the waiver rule in Kitchens in order to provide a defendant with adequate representation.
Insofar as the defendant also suggests that the rule will unfairly penalize defendants because of inadvertent mistakes by counsel resulting from fatigue, distractions or other factors relating to the rapid pace of a trial, competent counsel do not defer consideration of jury instructions until the last minute, thereby increasing the possibility of committing inadvertent mistakes. Counsel necessarily must consider what the state will be required to prove and how the jury should be instructed well before commencement of the trial proceedings in order to prepare a defense. Thereafter, our rules of practice provide counsel with multiple opportunities to participate in the formulation of proper jury instructions based on counsel's professional assessment of what the jury needs to know to decide the case fairly. Viewed in this light, the rule in
Kitchens
merely encourages counsel to utilize these opportunities, thus enhancing the probability that the instructions will be accurate. We therefore reject the defendant's claim that the waiver rule sets an unattainable standard that requires more than competent counsel. In fact, the opposite is true. As Justice Katz observed in her concurring opinion in
Kitchens
, a review of Connecticut cases decided between 2000 and 2010 indicates that "the number of cases in which a defendant obtains reversal of his conviction on the basis of
Golding
review of instructional errors is negligible"; id., at 523,
The defendant next claims that, although the rules of practice provide for counsel's participation in the formulation of jury instructions, the degree of participation necessary for waiver to be found never has been clearly enunciated, thus creating confusion and no clear pattern among cases decided after Kitchens for future guidance. We disagree. The rules of practice, together with the waiver rule in Kitchens , provide exceptionally clear guidance as to how counsel may avoid waiver and successfully preserve a jury instruction claim. For example, the rules of practice provide that counsel may file a written request to charge; Practice Book §§ 42-16, 42-17 and 42-18 ; request an on-the-record charging conference; Practice Book § 42-19 ; obtain a summary of the substance of the proposed instructions at the close of evidence; Practice Book § 42-19 ; discuss modification of the instructions for purposes of correction or clarification; Practice Book § 42-24 ; and be given notice and the opportunity to make suggestions when the jury requests additional instructions following the start of deliberations. Practice Book § 42-27. The specificity of these rules suggests that counsel who fail to participate in formulating the jury instructions but have been given a meaningful opportunity to review them are on official notice that, unless they have objected to a particular instruction or a portion thereof, they have waived all future jury instruction claims. The rules of practice therefore serve the twin goals of providing the jury with accurate instructions and protecting the courts from expending limited resources on the adjudication of collateral attacks on the verdict that otherwise might have been avoided.
Finally, even if there may be no clear pattern among the cases decided following
Kitchens
, the lack of such a pattern is not because the rule itself has never been clearly enunciated; rather, it is because reviewing courts are required to determine whether the unique facts and circumstances in any given case support a finding of waiver. This is no different from the type of "facts and circumstances" analysis we conduct in other contexts;
State
v.
Davalloo
,
First, they ignore the significant fact that only a defendant is entitled to raise on appeal a claim that the jury instructions were incorrect. This means that, if the defendant is acquitted on the basis of instructions that misstate an element of the crime, the state may not appeal from the judgment on that ground but must accept the acquittal, even if the evidence may have been sufficient to establish the defendant's guilt under the proper instruction. See
State
v.
Ledbetter
,
As for the defendant's argument that the Kitchens waiver rule allows the state to exercise undue influence over whether unpreserved constitutional claims are reviewed under Golding because the state may decide against making a waiver claim in some cases for tactical reasons, this argument is highly speculative. The defendant does not suggest what that tactical advantage might be, and we perceive none. By failing to make a waiver claim, the state must then defend against the claim and risk a decision by the reviewing court in favor of the defendant. Even if the defendant's argument had some degree of validity, the defense must bear its share of responsibility for making certain that the jury instructions are correct. Thus, when defense counsel fails to take advantage of the many opportunities available during the trial proceedings to obtain accurate instructions, the defendant cannot blame the state for deciding in some cases and not in others to assert a claim of waiver. Regardless of any uncertainty, however, defendants should expect the state to assert a waiver claim in any case in which such a claim may be validly raised and have no reason to complain if the state fails to do so.
With respect to habeas review, the defendant argues that review typically takes place several years after the resolution of a direct appeal, prevents the speedy correction of obvious constitutional errors and puts further pressure on an already overburdened habeas docket. We agree that habeas review delays the resolution of an instructional claim that is deemed waived on direct appeal. We nonetheless consider habeas review good policy because only in the habeas court may a record be developed sufficient to determine whether counsel waived the claim for constitutionally acceptable strategic reasons. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 497,
Kitchens
provides a perfect example of the value of habeas review. On direct appeal, this court determined that the defendant had waived his unpreserved claim
of instructional error. Id., at 500,
We finally disagree with the defendant's argument that the court in
Kitchens
mislabeled forfeiture as waiver and that this court should follow federal waiver law, which provides that, in cases that do not involve invited or induced error, waiver occurs only when the challenged instruction is discussed on the record and defense counsel stipulates or specifically approves of the instruction by words or other conduct. See, e.g.,
United States
v.
Polouizzi
,
First, waiver under
Kitchens
, which requires that counsel affirmatively express satisfaction with the instructions proposed or given, is consistent with our precedent on waiver and inconsistent with this court's understanding of forfeiture as "the failure to make the timely assertion of a right ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
State
v.
Davis
, supra,
Second, the defendant's claim that Connecticut should follow federal waiver law overlooks the fact that federal law is not monolithic and that some federal courts in recent years have adopted a view of waiver similar to that of
Kitchens
. For example, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded repeatedly during the past fifteen years that defendants have waived jury instruction claims by indicating to the trial court that the instructions were acceptable even in the absence of an on-the-record discussion of the precise instruction challenged on appeal. See
United States
v.
Carter
,
Third, and even more significant, the defendant's argument overlooks the fact that federal waiver law is inconsistent with our jurisprudence, thus making a comparison of federal and Connecticut law extremely difficult, if not impossible. Although Connecticut and federal law both distinguish between forfeiture and
waiver on the ground that "forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right [whereas] waiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right"; (internal quotation marks omitted)
United States
v.
Olano
, supra,
Federal review of unpreserved trial errors is governed by rule 52 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which provides that "[a] plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the court's attention."
In contrast, Connecticut waiver law is construed more broadly than federal waiver law, and plain error review more strictly. An unpreserved constitutional claim that has not been waived under
Kitchens
may be afforded
Golding
review but is not automatically afforded plain error review, as in the federal courts. That is because the plain error doctrine in Connecticut, "codified at Practice Book § 60-5, is an extraordinary remedy used by appellate courts [only] to rectify errors committed at trial that, although unpreserved, are of such monumental proportion that they threaten to erode our system of justice and work a serious and manifest injustice on the aggrieved party. [T]he plain error doctrine ... is not ... a rule of reviewability. It is a rule of reversibility. That is, it is a doctrine that this court invokes in order to rectify a trial court ruling that, although either not properly preserved or never raised at all in the trial court, nonetheless requires reversal of the trial court's judgment, for reasons of policy. ... In addition, the plain error doctrine is reserved for truly extraordinary situations [in which] the existence of the error is so obvious that it affects the fairness and integrity of and public confidence in the judicial proceedings. ... Plain error is a doctrine that should
be invoked sparingly. ... Implicit in this very demanding standard is the notion ... that invocation of the plain error doctrine is reserved for occasions requiring the reversal of the judgment under review. ... [Thus, an appellant] cannot prevail under [the plain error doctrine] ... unless he demonstrates that the claimed error is both so clear and so harmful that a failure to reverse the judgment would result in manifest injustice." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.)
State
v.
Myers
,
In sum, federal law generally, but not always, limits waiver in jury instruction cases to a small number of cases in which the disputed instruction has been discussed on the record at trial or in which there is clear evidence in the record that the instruction was accepted by defense counsel for tactical reasons. Virtually all other jury instruction claims are considered forfeited and are subject only to plain error review. Although plain error may be found in some cases, a remedy is not mandated but, rather, is granted at the discretion of the reviewing court upon a showing that the error was clear and affected the defendant's substantial rights. In Connecticut, however, the system for reviewing unpreserved constitutional claims is more complicated. Unpreserved claims that have not been waived are not automatically reviewed under the plain error doctrine because the plain error doctrine in Connecticut, unlike under federal law, is one of reversibility rather than reviewability. In other words, plain error is reserved for the very few cases in which the alleged error is so extraordinary that automatic reversal is required, there being no need for a discretionary determination by the court regarding the imposition of a remedy. Consequently, most forfeited claims of constitutional dimension in Connecticut are reviewed under Golding if they have not been waived. Given these differences, the defendant's comparison of forfeited claims under state law with forfeited claims under federal law that are afforded plain error review is inappropriate because it presumes that plain error review is the same in the state and federal systems. It is not. We therefore reject the defendant's comparison of state and federal law on waiver and forfeiture as misleading and irrelevant.
We instead agree with the state that the rule in Kitchens improves the process of constructing fair and balanced jury instructions because it provides incentives to the parties and the court to ensure that the instructions are accurate. In contrast, allowing appellate review of any unpreserved jury instruction claim of constitutional magnitude under Golding gives appellate counsel unbridled freedom to raise a multiplicity of jury instruction claims that trial counsel waived for tactical reasons, as was the case in Kitchens . Finally, the defendant never explains why an express waiver is not subject to many of the same deficiencies attributed to an implicit waiver, such as the failure of counsel to perceive a defect in a particular instruction, even though counsel may have suggested or specifically approved of the instruction during an on-the-record charging conference. We therefore conclude that the implied waiver rule this court adopted in Kitchens should not be overturned.
The concurring justices disagree with the Kitchens waiver rule on the ground that it is too expansive and upsets the balance achieved under Golding . Chief Justice Rogers, who embraces an approach to waiver similar to the federal approach, is specifically concerned that habeas review is not an effective and equivalent substitute for direct appellate review of novel constitutional claims because it involves substantial delay and provides an inhospitable framework for resolving such claims. She also contends that the waiver rule has spawned an entirely new area of jurisprudence addressing whether the requirements for waiver have been met, and fears that a claim of instructional error deemed waived under Kitchens will be raised anew in a habeas proceeding. We disagree.
With respect to her first concern, Chief Justice Rogers overlooks our express determination in this case to "leave the merits and a full discussion of this argument for another day, when such a claim is presented to this court on direct appeal." Footnote 22 of this opinion. As for her contention that the waiver rule in
Kitchens
has created an entirely new area of jurisprudence, there is no evidence to support this claim.
Kitchens
is only one in a long line of cases over the course of several decades in which Connecticut courts have considered implied waiver in the context of jury instruction claims. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 470-72,
Finally, to the extent Chief Justice Rogers prefers the federal approach to determining whether a jury instruction claim has been waived, we point to the imbalance that would result from attempting to combine federal and state waiver law. Although federal waiver law permits the review of a greater number of claims than would be permissible under state law because more federal claims are deemed forfeited, and thus reviewable, than would be deemed reviewable under
Kitchens
, the ultimate remedy under the federal plain error doctrine is more difficult to obtain than the remedy available under
Golding
that Chief Justice Rogers recommends. That is because the federal remedy for plain error is discretionary, whereas the remedy under
Golding
is automatic reversal of the judgment if the four-pronged test of
Golding
is satisfied. Accordingly, permitting Connecticut courts to review a greater number of claims by following federal forfeiture law in the absence of a state remedy comparable to the stringent
federal plain error remedy for determining whether claims succeed opens the door to the abuses that
Golding
review was intended to discourage, such as trial by ambuscade. See, e.g.,
Moye
v.
Commissioner of Correction
,
We turn next to Justice Palmer's concurring opinion, in which he also argues that the waiver rule in Kitchens should be overturned. We reject his lengthy analysis in all respects because, among other things, it is based in part on the construction of a false dichotomy between the reasoning in Kitchens and the present case, and on an incorrect understanding of how the court in Kitchens used the term "acquiescence" when discussing the state's claims and Connecticut's prior waiver law. We also reject Justice Palmer's approach to waiver, which is far more extreme than the federal approach and, to our knowledge, has not been adopted by any other jurisdiction. Indeed, the approach he suggests would have the effect of virtually eliminating Connecticut's implied waiver doctrine in the context of jury instruction claims. We address each point in turn.
Justice Palmer initially contends that the implied waiver rule in Kitchens was predicated on the legal fiction, or presumption, "that a defense counsel who reviews and then acquiesces in the trial court's proposed instructions has considered and declined to raise every potential objection to every part of the instructions" but that we have "disavowed" this rationale and now justify the rule on the ground that "defense counsel, upon reviewing the trial court's proposed jury charge, knowingly and voluntarily waives her client's procedural right to later challenge those instructions on appeal." This is simply untrue. There is no difference in the reasoning articulated in Kitchens and the present case.
Justice Palmer constructs a false dichotomy lacking any basis in fact. The court in
Kitchens
repeatedly explained, as we do in the present case, that waiver involves the "intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege"; (internal quotation marks omitted)
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 469,
Justice Palmer also argues that the court in Kitchens failed to provide clear guidance as to what constitutes implied waiver, in part because the court used the term "acquiescence" in a "misleading and inconsistent manner." He contends that " Kitchens described as acquiescence everything from defense counsel's sitting silently by and failing to object to the court's jury charge to defense counsel's expression of affirmative satisfaction or agreement with the charge," and that the result of this inconsistency is confusion and a lack of understanding as to the type of conduct that may lead to a finding of waiver. Justice Palmer also claims that the court in Kitchens and the majority opinion in the present case have indicated that "mere acquiescence" constitutes waiver, which entails passive acceptance. This is not the case.
Justice Palmer continues to misunderstand the reasoning in
Kitchens
and the present case. The court in
Kitchens
did not use the term "acquiescence" when articulating the modified waiver rule but described
implied waiver as requiring, among other things, counsel's "affirmative acceptance" of the instructions that were given.
In explaining his own view as to when implied waiver should be found, Justice Palmer resurrects his argument in
Kitchens
that "an unpreserved claim that instructional error of constitutional magnitude has occurred should be unreviewable under
Golding
only when (1) defense counsel induced or invited the error, or (2) it clearly can be inferred that counsel-or the defendant-actually was aware of the alleged defect in the instruction but chose for strategic or other reasons not to object (true waiver)."
First, the unavailability of
Golding
review in cases of induced or invited error is based on exactly the same presumption, or "legal fiction," Justice Palmer rejects as "illogical," "unfounded" and "implausible" in the context of implied waiver under
Kitchens
. The presumption is that the claim is unreviewable because the defendant had knowledge of any potential flaws in the instructions that were given but intentionally disregarded them for strategic reasons.
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 470,
Second, Justice Palmer's definition of implied waiver, which would limit waiver to cases in which "it clearly can be inferred that counsel-or the defendant-actually was aware of the alleged defect in the instruction but chose for strategic or other reasons not to object (true waiver)," is so narrow that it abolishes, for all
intents and purposes, the implied waiver doctrine in Connecticut in the context of jury instruction claims. In
Kitchens
, the court responded to this same, now recycled argument by observing that the concept of implied waiver under Justice Palmer's definition very likely would be "eviscerate[d]" because "there appears to be no way that counsel may clearly demonstrate such knowledge except by expressly informing the court."
We conclude with the observation that Justice Palmer, in his enthusiasm to overturn the waiver rule in
Kitchens
, makes many other points that are either unsupported or supported by irrelevant sources to which he cites. For example, he declares that incarcerated defendants will suffer unnecessarily under
Kitchens
as a result of having to litigate their jury instruction claims in habeas proceedings and proclaims that Juma Lahai, the petitioner in
Lahai
v.
Warden
, Superior Court, judicial district of Tolland, Docket No. TSR-CV-09-4003028-S,
Justice Palmer makes a similar mistake when claiming that the concept of waiver should be narrowly drawn so as not to unduly limit
Golding
review. He cites
State
v.
Pond
,
Justice Palmer further declares that, "with five years now having passed since this court decided
Kitchens
, time and experience have borne out my concerns, and those of Justice Katz, that the majority's reliance on habeas proceedings as a panacea was seriously misplaced. When
Kitchens
was decided, we predicted that the rule would increase rather than decrease the burden on judicial resources because any time saved in avoiding appellate review of instructional error would be more than offset by the need for a full habeas trial on the issue. In fact, of the six cases decided in the year following this court's decision in
Kitchens
in which the Appellate Court found claims of instructional error waived under
Kitchens
, four already have resulted in habeas petitions related to the alleged instructional error.
"When
Kitchens
was decided, we also warned that habeas proceedings would only push back the inevitable, as petitioners whose ineffective assistance of counsel
claims were denied on collateral review ultimately would return to the Appellate Court for review of those decisions. Sure enough, the first generation of post-
Kitchens
habeas appeals is now coming home to roost. See, e.g.,
Bharrat
v.
Commissioner of Correction
,
Justice Palmer cites four habeas cases during the past five years in which a
Kitchens
claim was purportedly
raised. Four cases in five years, however, can hardly be regarded as an intolerable consequence of
Kitchens
. Moreover, none of the cited cases is relevant because the rule in
Kitchens
was either not raised or only one of several issues raised by the petitioner. In
Carrion
v.
Warden
, Superior Court, judicial district of Tolland, Docket No. TSR-CV-11-4004163-S (December 15, 2015), for example, the petitioner, Christopher Carrion, asserted three claims of error, only one of which was a claim of ineffective assistance based on instructional impropriety.
As for the other three cases that Justice Palmer cites, the court determined in
Lahai
v.
Warde
n
, supra, Superior Court, Docket No. TSR-CV-09-4003028-S, that the instructional error had been induced; and no
Kitchens
claim was raised in
Myers
v.
Warden
, Superior Court, judicial district of Tolland, Docket No. TSR-CV-14-4005938-S (withdrawn August 12, 2016), or in the habeas proceeding and appeal that followed in
Bharrat
. See generally
Bharrat
v.
Commissioner of Correction
, supra, 167 Conn.App. at 158,
Justice Palmer finally suggests, as he did in
Kitchens
, that the waiver of a
jury instruction claim under
Kitchens
may be overcome if defense counsel informs the trial court that he has not raised a constitutional challenge to the charge because he is unaware of any such claim. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 541,
The judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed.
In this opinion EVELEIGH, ESPINOSA and ROBINSON Js. concurred.
The court granted certification on the following issue: "Did the Appellate Court properly determine that the defendant's unpreserved instructional claim had been waived under [
Kitchens
]?"
State
v.
Bellamy
,
On November 18, 2015, after oral argument had been scheduled, we ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs on the following issue: "Should this court overrule [
Kitchens
] and permit review of unpreserved claims of instructional error that meet the reviewability requirements of
State
v.
Golding
,
Although we ordinarily would consider the defendant's waiver claim only after a determination that it was of constitutional magnitude under the second prong of
State
v.
Golding
,
The court initially charged that the jury, in deciding whether to believe all, some or none of a witness' testimony, should consider a number of factors, including: (1) "Was the witness able to see, hear and know the things about which the witness testified?" (2) "How well was the witness able to recall and describe those things?" (3) "What was the witness' manner and demeanor while testifying?" (4) "Did the witness have any interest in the outcome of this case or any bias or prejudice concerning any party or any matter involved in the case?" (5) "How reasonable was the witness' testimony considered in light of all of the evidence in the case?" (6) "Was the witness' testimony contradicted by what that witness has said or done at another time or by the testimony of other witnesses or other evidence."
The court subsequently instructed: "Identity is an issue in every criminal case. An element of each offense is the identity of the perpetrator. The state must prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant was the individual who committed the crimes that the jury considers. Therefore, the burden in this case is on the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt not only that the crimes charge[d] were committed but also that the defendant was the person who committed the crime[s]. If the state does not prove the identity of the defendant as the perpetrator beyond a reasonable doubt [with respect to] any of the offenses charged, you must find him not guilty of the offense[s]. You must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the accuracy of the identification of the defendant before you convict him. It is your duty to recall and weigh and consider all of the evidence relating to the identification of the defendant. You should consider the opportunity the witness had to observe the defendant, the degree of certainty of the identification made by the witness, whether the witness knew the defendant before the identification [and] any other circumstances that you think are relevant to the issue of identification of the defendant."
The defendant initially appealed to this court, which transferred the appeal to the Appellate Court.
In
Golding
, we stated a defendant may prevail on an unpreserved claim when: "(1) the record is adequate to review the alleged claim of error; (2) the claim is of constitutional magnitude alleging the violation of a fundamental right; (3) the alleged constitutional violation clearly exists and clearly deprived the defendant of a fair trial; and (4) if subject to harmless error analysis, the state has failed to demonstrate harmlessness of the alleged constitutional violation beyond a reasonable doubt." (Footnote omitted.)
State
v.
Golding
, supra,
"A defendant in a criminal prosecution may waive one or more of his or her fundamental rights. ... [I]n the usual
Golding
situation, the defendant raises a claim on appeal [that], while not preserved at trial, at least was not waived at trial. ... [A] constitutional claim that has been waived does not satisfy the third prong of the
Golding
test because, in such circumstances, we simply cannot conclude that injustice [has been] done to either party ... or that the alleged constitutional violation ... exists and ... deprived the defendant of a fair trial ...." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.)
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 467,
The defendant repeatedly states that the court in
Kitchens
deemed a lack of assertion of a right, or silence, to constitute a waiver. This is incorrect. The court in
Kitchens
emphasized that waiver "involves the idea of assent"; (internal quotation marks omitted)
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 469,
There was no claim in
Coleman
that the defendant did not have a meaningful opportunity to review the trial court's jury instructions. See
State
v.
Coleman
, supra,
In their supplemental briefs, both the defendant and the state ask this court to take judicial notice of the appeal in
State
v.
Herring
,
To the extent the defendant argues that the court in Kitchens "deemed a lack of assertion of a right, or silence, to be waiver," or that Kitchens "presum[ed] waiver from inaction," it misreads our holding in Kitchens .
In
Brewer
, the trial court instructed the jury that it must unanimously find the defendant not guilty of the murder charge before it could consider the lesser included offense of manslaughter, which the defendant later challenged on appeal.
State
v.
Brewer
, supra,
We also noted that, "in circumstances in which defense counsel's waiver of a constitutional claim cannot be justified, that is, when the waiver constitutes a violation of the defendant's right to the effective assistance of counsel, the defendant may seek recourse through habeas corpus proceedings. Such proceedings are available to safeguard the constitutional rights of any defendant who has been prejudiced by the ineffective assistance of his or her attorney."
State
v.
Holness
, supra,
Chief Justice Rogers contends that "a broad waiver of claims of instructional error" is not analogous to the abandonment of claims that might have been made in connection with a waiver of other constitutional rights, such as the right to trial, to counsel or to a probable cause hearing, because a criminal defendant who waives such rights "consciously chooses to relinquish claims, known or unknown, in exchange for something he or she values-a favorable plea, the right to self-representation or a strategic advantage, respectively." Footnote 15 of Chief Justice Rogers' concurring opinion. We disagree. There is no such "exchange" because waiver of the foregoing rights is within the complete control of the defendant. Even if the waivers are viewed as involving a so-called "exchange," however, the gains to which Chief Justice Rogers refers do not necessarily have any clear practical value. Waiving the right to trial counsel, for example, does not provide defendants who have no knowledge of the law or legal experience with any obvious benefit other than the satisfaction of self-representation, despite the newly acquired ability to control trial strategy. In contrast, criminal defendants who waive a claim of instructional error are still able to utilize the wide array of procedural tools available to ensure that the jury instructions are correct. As discussed in this opinion, these tools include the rules of practice, which provide defendants and their counsel with numerous opportunities to participate in the formulation of the jury instructions throughout the proceedings. Chief Justice Rogers specifically recognizes this benefit when she states: "[T]here are features unique to jury instructions that justify holding counsel to a higher standard of accountability for failing to preserve claims of error. ... Specifically, jury instructions are carefully formulated outside of the rush of trial pursuant to the rules of practice that afford counsel a large degree of participation in a structured process. The purpose of these rules is to detect error at the earliest possible juncture, and the threat of an implied waiver of an instructional claim on appeal, at least in narrowly defined circumstances, provides an appropriate incentive for the opportunity to be taken seriously." Footnote 16 of Chief Justice Rogers' concurring opinion. She adds, and we agree, that "[t]he detection of error at trial, without the necessity of an appeal, is the most desirable outcome for purposes of both fairness to defendants and the efficient operation of the court system."
In her concurring opinion in
Kitchens
, Justice Katz noted that, from January 1, 2000, to May 5, 2010, this court considered approximately seventy criminal appeals in which a defendant requested
Golding
review of instructional error and found reversible error in only six cases.
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 522 n.17,
In a separate but related argument, the defendant contends that the waiver rule in Kitchens should be overturned because it has resulted in conflicting and confusing decisions by reviewing courts as to what constitutes a " 'meaningful opportunity' " to review the instructions and what constitutes an " 'adequate record' " to support waiver. The defendant also argues that the waiver rule is inconsistent with the goals of "efficient appellate administration" and "the correction of manifest injustice." We disagree.
As previously discussed, waiver decisions cannot be compared on the basis of a single factor, as the defendant attempts to do in his argument to this court. Rather, it is the combination of facts and circumstances in each individual case that must be considered. For example, the amount of time deemed sufficient to constitute a meaningful opportunity to review the jury instructions depends on factors such as the length and complexity of both the trial and the instructions, which will very likely differ in each case. Thus, direct comparisons between cases simply cannot be made. Compare
State
v.
Lavigne
,
The defendant's corresponding argument that our law provides no guidance as to what constitutes an " 'adequate record' " to find waiver under Kitchens is likewise lacking in merit. In arguing that our case law is confusing on this issue, the defendant cites to three cases in which waiver was found and two cases in which waiver was not found, even though there was no marked copy of the trial court's proposed jury instructions in the record of any of the cases. In the three cases in which waiver was found, however, the record contained evidence not present in the other two cases, indicating that defense counsel had knowledge of the proposed jury instructions and a meaningful opportunity to review them. Compare State v. Bialowas ,160 Conn.App. 417 , 427 n.7, 428,125 A.3d 642 (2015) (although record contained no copy of court's proposed charge but only final amended version of instructions given to jury, defense counsel waived instructional claim because record showed that counsel received court's proposed charge three days before charge was given, court asked counsel prior to delivery of closing arguments whether he had " '[a]nything else' " to state on record with regard to off-the-record charging conference, and counsel responded, " 'I don't think so, Your Honor' "), and State v. Osbourne ,138 Conn.App. 518 , 543,53 A.3d 284 ("[Defense counsel waived objection to the instruction as given because] [a]lthough the record does not reflect whether the court provided counsel with a written copy of its charge before it was given to the jury, the court held a charge conference before instructing the jury, and it is discernible from the record that the court's instructions to the jury were consistent with the instructions as discussed during the charge conference. [Defense counsel] did not object ... [or] take exception ... to the court's initial instruction, or to either of the court's subsequent reiterations of that instruction; nor did [defense counsel] object to the transcription of its instruction being provided to the jury. Because the court instructed on the interfering charge three times and then submitted a written copy of the instruction to the jury, it is reasonable to infer that defense counsel had knowledge of any potential flaws in the court's instruction, yet he failed to raise any claims regarding those flaws before the trial court."), cert. denied,307 Conn. 937 ,56 A.3d 716 (2012), and State v. Bharrat,129 Conn.App. 1 , 17 and n.9, 18-19,20 A.3d 9 (although record contained no copies of instructions circulated by court on two different occasions, defendant did not dispute state's assertion that jury instructions in circulated copies encompassed same instructions that court ultimately delivered, and, therefore, claim was waived because record reflected that court distributed copies of final charge to parties, summarized on record its recollection of charging conferences held with parties, informed counsel it would give more time to check instructions for potential errors, asked thereafter if counsel had " 'any addition, summation, disagreements, additions, [or] subtractions' " from court's summary of charging conference, and, following jury charge, asked for further comments, to which defense counsel replied in negative), cert. denied,302 Conn. 905 ,23 A.3d 1243 (2011), with State v. Davis , supra,311 Conn. at 479, 481 ,88 A.3d 445 (defense counsel did not waive instructional claim because court did not provide counsel with precise content of proposed instructions, as "the only discussion of the jury instructions, prior to the delivery of the charge to the jury, was limited to the state's proposed charge, which defense counsel stated he had not read, and [to] ambiguous references to the [standard criminal jury] instructions on the Judicial Branch website" that court stated it would deliver " 'in essence, maybe not exactly' "), and State v. Devalda , supra,306 Conn. at 505 n.15,50 A.3d 882 (instructional claim was not waived because record surrounding discussion of charging conference failed to indicate when or whether defense received written copy of proposed jury instructions).
The defendant's suggestion that a state's attorney who spots an error might deliberately ignore it, "secure in the knowledge that [a] Kitchens waiver will bar review of that error on appeal," reflects a cynical view that we reject.
Evidence that jury instructions are likely to be more carefully crafted in light of
Kitchens
is provided by
State
v.
Herring
,
The defendant contends that "[a] habeas action costs the system money, time, and resources. A public defender or assigned counsel is likely needed, both at trial and on appeal. Judges, state's attorneys, and judicial staff are required for trial and appeal. An appellate judge who [finds a] Kitchens waiver during the direct appeal may, a few years later, be presented with the same issue in the habeas appeal."
Trial counsel's testimony at the habeas proceedings in Kitchens also refutes the defendant's suggestion in the present case that counsel would never implicitly waive jury instruction claims as a matter of trial strategy. Counsel may have perfectly legitimate reasons, as he did in Kitchens , to create a theory of defense that not only does not involve the issue raised in the jury instruction claim on appeal, but would be weakened by a jury instruction request inconsistent with the chosen theory.
To the extent the defendant claims that habeas review does not eliminate the unfairness of finding implied waiver in cases in which counsel challenges an aspect of settled law on direct appeal that was not challenged in the trial proceedings, we note that the defendant is in the same position as all other defendants to whom the law has applied in the past. Moreover, there is nothing to prevent trial counsel from challenging settled law in the trial proceedings, thereby preserving the claim for appellate review. See
State
v.
Brewer
, supra,
The following test is applied to determine whether a claim of unpreserved error may be reviewed under rule 52 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. "First, there must be an error or defect-some sort of [d]eviation from a legal rule-that has not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned, i.e., affirmatively waived, by the appellant. ... Second, the legal error must be clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute. ... Third, the error must have affected the appellant's substantial rights .... Fourth ... if the above three prongs are satisfied, the [reviewing] court ... has the discretion to remedy the error-discretion which ought to be exercised only if the error seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." (Citations omitted; emphasis omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.)
Puckett
v.
United States
,
The court stated: "We conclude that, when the trial court provides counsel with a copy of the proposed jury instructions, allows a meaningful opportunity for their review, solicits comments from counsel regarding changes or modifications and counsel affirmatively accepts the instructions proposed or given, the defendant may be deemed to have knowledge of any potential flaws therein and to have waived implicitly the constitutional right to challenge the instructions on direct appeal. Such a determination by the reviewing court must be based on a close examination of the record and the particular facts and circumstances of each case."
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 482-83,
The court stated: "The standard that we describe would not allow waiver to be presumed from a silent record or from defense counsel's mere acquiescence in, or failure to object to, the jury instructions. A silent record, by definition, would not satisfy the standard because there would be no factual basis from which the court could infer a waiver, and mere acquiescence or failure to object, without more, would provide an insufficient basis for a finding of waiver because there would be no evidence from which the court could determine whether counsel had been given a meaningful opportunity to review, comment on and express satisfaction with the instructions, or whether counsel had, in fact, expressed such satisfaction before or after the instructions were given."
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 483 at n.23,
In his concurrence in
Kitchens
, Justice Palmer stated that "waiver may be implied-that is, it may be inferred-only if the record reveals conduct by counsel demonstrating
both
that counsel had
knowledge
of the potential constitutional claim
and intentionally
decided to raise it, presumably for strategic reasons." (Emphasis in original.)
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 537,
In response to our conclusion that Justice Palmer's idiosyncratic definition very likely would eviscerate the concept of implied waiver, he cites several "traditional, pre-
Kitchens
" cases in which the court found waiver under reasoning he considers consistent with his definition. Footnote 6 of Justice Palmer's concurring opinion. In none of those cases, however, did the court find waiver under reasoning consistent with his definition because there was no indication in any of those cases that defense counsel was aware that the instruction was defective when counsel agreed to the instruction later challenged on appeal, as Justice Palmer's definition requires. See
State
v.
Hampton
,
We note that, after the court concluded that the doctrine of induced error precluded Lahai from prevailing under
Golding
' s third prong;
State
v.
Lahai
, supra,
Justice Palmer's attempt to downplay the significance of this fact by stating that the Appellate Court would have found a waiver under Kitchens if the trial court had satisfied the Kitchens criteria for implied waiver, thus preventing review of the defendant's claim, is wholly speculative.
See
Carrion
v.
Warden
, Superior Court, judicial district of Tolland, Docket No. TSR-CV-11-4004163-S,
The other two claims were that Carrion's trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and failing to call witnesses. Carrion v. Warden , supra, Superior Court, Docket No. TSR-CV-11-4004163-S.
Concurrence Opinion
I agree with the defendant, Brandon Montrell Bellamy, that this court's marked expansion of the doctrine of implied waiver of claims of jury instructional error in
State
v.
Kitchens
,
It is well established that "
Golding
[review] is a narrow exception to the general rule that an appellate court will not entertain a claim that has not been raised in the trial court. The reason for the rule is obvious: to permit a party to raise a claim on appeal that has not been raised at trial-after it is too late for the trial court or the opposing party to address the claim-would encourage trial by ambuscade, which is unfair to both
the trial court and the opposing party. ... Nevertheless, because constitutional claims implicate fundamental rights, it also would be unfair automatically and categorically to bar a defendant from raising a meritorious constitutional claim that warrants a new trial solely because the defendant failed to identify the violation at trial.
Golding
strikes an appropriate balance between these competing interests: the defendant may raise such a constitutional claim on appeal, and
the appellate tribunal will review it, but only if the trial court record is adequate for appellate review." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Moye
v.
Commissioner of Correction
,
In
Kitchens
, this court announced the following general rule to determine whether a claim of jury instructional error will be deemed to have been waived by trial counsel and, therefore, unreviewable on appeal: "[W]hen the trial court provides counsel with a copy of the proposed jury instructions, allows a meaningful opportunity for their review, solicits comments from counsel regarding changes or modifications and counsel affirmatively accepts the instructions proposed or given, the defendant may be deemed to have knowledge of any potential flaws therein and to have waived implicitly the constitutional right to challenge the instructions on direct appeal. Such a determination by the reviewing court must be based on a close examination of the record and the particular facts and circumstances of each case."
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 482-83,
Upon further consideration, I am convinced that the inference upon which the
Kitchens
rule relied was an unreasonably broad one, and that the circumstances described in
Kitchens
more accurately reflect, in the majority of instances, a forfeiture of the right to claim a specific error in the instructions rather than a waiver of that right.
In
Kitchens
, we relied on a number of additional factors in support of an expansive implied waiver rule, among them the remaining availability of habeas review. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 496-98,
Another purpose of appeals is to legitimize state decision making. "In other words, appeals are an essential part of the overall procedural structure which operates to assure us that the system is a fair one. It is essential that the system not only be fair but that it be perceived as fair." R. Calhoun, supra,
Further, I am not convinced that the benefits of the
Kitchens
rule outweigh these costs. In particular, I question whether the intended efficiencies truly will be achieved. Although the rule has reduced the number of direct appeals addressing claims of jury instructional error substantively, it has spawned an entirely new area of jurisprudence addressing whether the requirements
for a waiver have been met.
For the foregoing reasons, I believe that this court should abandon the
Kitchens
experiment of broadly denying direct appellate review of unpreserved constitutional claims of jury instructional error and, instead, return to the much narrower conception of implied waiver in this area that predated
Kitchens
. Under pre-
Kitchens
implied waiver jurisprudence, a waiver was not deemed to have occurred by application of any preconceived general rule, but rather, was determined more flexibly on a case-by-case basis in view of all the relevant facts and circumstances. Claims of instructional error that were not identified at trial were deemed
waived by defense counsel's approval of the charge
Under these circumstances, I would not find a waiver of the defendant's instructional claim. First, there is no copy of the trial court's proposed instructions in the record. Furthermore, although the record suggests that the trial court and counsel discussed the identification instruction in chambers, the extent of that discussion and defense counsel's participation therein is not apparent. Finally, there is no substantive, on-the-record discussion of the instruction to evidence defense counsel's focus thereon. Rather, the trial court's description of the instruction, to which counsel thereafter simply agreed, is quite general. In my view, this is not enough to infer waiver.
Although I believe that the defendant's request for
Golding
review of his claim should not be foreclosed due to waiver, I nevertheless conclude that the claim necessarily fails for another reason. Specifically, because the claim is instructional and not constitutional in nature; see footnote 2 of this concurring opinion; it cannot prevail under the second prong of
Golding
. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court based on different reasoning. See
Small
v.
Commissioner of Correction
,
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully concur.
PALMER, J., with whom McDONALD, J., joins, concurring in the judgment.
In
State
v.
Kitchens
,
Constrained by centuries of precedent, the majority in
Kitchens
was forced to acknowledge that a person executes a waiver only when he intentionally and voluntarily chooses to relinquish a known right. Id., at 469,
Kitchens
' initial solution to this conundrum was to take refuge in what the majority in that case conceded
as a pure "legal fiction," namely, the presumption that a defense counsel who reviews and then acquiesces in the trial court's proposed instructions has considered and declined to raise every potential objection to every part of the instructions. (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 487 n.25,
Unfortunately, this new theory fares no better than Kitchens ' original legal fiction theory. There is a strong presumption against a finding of waiver, especially with respect to the constitutional rights of criminal defendants, and waiver-whether substantive or procedural-can be found only when there is unambiguous evidence that the defendant, with full understanding of his rights, actually intends to waive them. Each of these principles is black letter law, and each is deeply and firmly rooted in the law of this state. The Kitchens rule violates all of them. To jettison these well established rules, merely to achieve a desired policy outcome, is to place at risk not only our Golding jurisprudence, and the fundamental rights of criminal defendants, but all of the other branches of the law in which the concept of waiver plays a significant role.
Rather than adding epicycle upon epicycle in a futile attempt to salvage the unprecedented and unnecessary Kitchens rule, we should admit the obvious. Descriptively, mere acquiescence, without something more, simply does not meet the high standard our law imposes for establishing a waiver of a defendant's constitutional rights. Normatively, the policy arguments that appear to animate these continued efforts to undercut our well established Golding jurisprudence are untested and unpersuasive. I therefore agree with the defendant, Brandon Montrell Bellamy, that Kitchens should be overruled as a failed experiment and that we should return to our pre- Kitchens jurisprudence governing the reviewability of unpreserved claims. See part I of this opinion. Specifically, an unpreserved claim that instructional error of constitutional magnitude has occurred should be unreviewable under Golding only when (1) defense counsel induced or invited the error, or (2) it clearly can be inferred that counsel-or the defendant-actually was aware of the alleged defect in the instruction but chose for strategic or other reasons not to object (true waiver).
Although I conclude that the defendant's unpreserved claim of instructional error was not waived under the proper legal standard, I do agree with the state that the claim is unreviewable under Golding because the alleged error is not of constitutional magnitude. See part II of this opinion. For this reason, I concur in the judgment.
I
KITCHENS SHOULD BE OVERRULED
Although the court in
Kitchens
was not always clear or precise in its use of the term "waiver," I understand the
Kitchens
rule-that the defendant implicitly waives the right to raise unpreserved claims of instructional error on appeal-to encompass both a descriptive element (it purports to describe the defendant's actual conduct) and a normative element (it tells us what the legal consequences of that conduct should be). See 28 Am. Jur. 2d 503-504, Estoppel and Waiver § 37 (2011). Descriptively, the court in
Kitchens
posited that acquiescence under the conditions outlined in that case supports
an inference that defense counsel did in fact knowingly and voluntarily relinquish any and all
challenges to the proposed instructions. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 483-85,
In this part of the opinion, I explain the three fundamental flaws in the Kitchens rule, both as originally rationalized in Kitchens and as reconstituted by the state in the present case: (1) it represents a dramatic departure from our prior Golding jurisprudence; see part I A of this opinion; (2) descriptively, it is predicated on an illogical and fictitious account of what actually happens when defense counsel acquiesces in the trial court's jury instructions; see part I B of this opinion; and (3) normatively, it carves out an unwarranted exception to Golding review for instructional errors on the basis of untested and unpersuasive policy arguments. See part I C of this opinion. I also explain how the Kitchens rule easily can be defeated; see part I D of this opinion; and why I am not persuaded by the state's argument that stare decisis requires that we retain the Kitchens rule despite these serious defects. See part I E of this opinion.
A
Kitchens Overturned and Confused Our Golding Jurisprudence
In
Kitchens
, the stated goal of the majority was to clarify Connecticut law on implied waiver, particularly with respect to jury instruction challenges.
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 474,
1
Kitchens Misstated and Departed from Our Golding Jurisprudence
I recognize that the question of whether a defendant has waived his constitutional rights hinges to some degree on the unique facts and circumstances of any given case. Nevertheless, our cases addressing the reviewability of unpreserved claims of instructional error divide fairly readily into three general categories.
First, at one end of the spectrum, are those cases in which defense counsel sits silently by as the court instructs the jury, with counsel giving no indication whether she objects to or agrees with the court's instructions. See, e.g.,
State
v.
Kurvin
,
See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 483 n.23,
Second, at the other end of the spectrum, is a broad class of cases in which something in the record indicates either that defense counsel has knowingly and voluntarily waived, on behalf of the defendant, the particular objection at issue on appeal (true waiver), or that she has induced or invited the instructional error that is subsequently challenged on appeal. We have found true waiver both when defense counsel expressly waives the objection at issue,
As to this second category of cases, I am in complete agreement with the majority that, if defense counsel either (1) induces or invites the claimed error, or (2) truly and unequivocally waives any objection, with the possible exception of plain error, the claim is not reviewable on appeal, even if the error is of constitutional magnitude. The rationale for the rule that a party who induces or invites an error cannot be heard on appeal to complain about that error is essentially one of unclean hands: "[t]o allow [a] defendant to seek reversal [after] his trial strategy has failed would amount to allowing him to induce potentially harmful error, and then ambush the state [and the trial court] with that claim on appeal." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
State
v.
Cruz
, supra,
The doctrine of waiver, by contrast, is animated largely by the principle of respect for autonomy.
Kitchens Failed To Provide Clear Guidance
One flaw in Kitchens , then, is that the majority in that case, like the majority in the present case, failed to properly distinguish between (1) cases in which defense counsel merely acquiesced in the trial court's proposed jury charge, and in which we traditionally found unpreserved constitutional claims reviewable under Golding , and (2) cases in which counsel actively induced or knowingly and voluntarily waived objections to the charge at issue, and in which we found unpreserved claims unreviewable under the third prong of Golding . A second, related flaw is that the majority in Kitchens further muddled these distinctions and failed to provide the reviewing court with clear guidance by using key terminology in a misleading and inconsistent manner. Perhaps the best (or worst) example of this is the court's inconsistent use of the term "acquiescence."
Descriptively, the majority in
Kitchens
described as acquiescence everything from defense counsel's sitting silently by and failing to object to the court's jury charge, to defense counsel's expression of affirmative satisfaction or agreement with the charge. Compare, e.g.,
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 476 n.20,
Similarly, although the court in
Kitchens
, and the majority in the present case, repeatedly reassures us that defense counsel implicitly waives jury instruction challenges only by "affirmatively" accepting the trial court's proposed instructions; id., at 482-83,
If the majority is committed to retaining the
Kitchens
rule, then it should use this second opportunity to clarify our waiver jurisprudence to provide clearer guidance as to what sorts of conduct by defense counsel will and will not be deemed to constitute an implied waiver. Moreover, the majority should have the courage of its convictions with respect to
Kitchens
. If waiver is to be found only in cases in which there is an actual
affirmative
assent, then the majority should clarify that the numerous post-
Kitchens
cases in which defense counsel simply passively acquiesced in the trial court's jury instructions were wrongly decided and that the appellants in those cases were entitled to have their claims reviewed. See, e.g.,
State
v.
Akande
, supra, 299 Conn. at 559, 562,
B
Kitchens Improperly Conflated Acquiescence and Waiver
In part I A of this opinion, I explained how the court in Kitchens misread this court's Golding jurisprudence and how, prior to Kitchens , we treated unpreserved claims of instructional error as forfeited but not waived when defense counsel merely acquiesced in a trial court's draft jury charge. In this part of the opinion, I explain why the majority in Kitchens erred in deviating from that precedent because mere acquiescence, while possibly supporting a finding of forfeiture, will never satisfy the well established standards for an implied waiver of fundamental constitutional rights. In its present attempt to shore up the obvious flaws in Kitchens ' analysis of the issue, the state has succeeded only in replacing a fiction with a fallacy.
1
Shortcomings of the Original Kitchens Rationale
In
Kitchens
, the state argued that a defense counsel who, following a meaningful opportunity to review the trial court's proposed jury charge, fails to object that the charge is deficient in some particular way, should be deemed to have done so for strategic reasons and, therefore, to have impliedly waived that objection.
State
v.
Kitchens
, Conn. Supreme Court Records & Briefs, March Term, 2010, State's Brief pp. 21-22. The majority in
Kitchens
largely adopted both the state's proposed rule and the stated rationale for the rule, holding that, "when the trial court provides counsel with a copy of the proposed jury instructions, allows a meaningful opportunity for their review, solicits comments from counsel regarding changes or modifications and counsel affirmatively accepts the instructions proposed or given,
the defendant may be deemed to have knowledge of any potential flaws therein
and to have waived implicitly the constitutional right to challenge the instructions on direct appeal." (Emphasis added.)
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 482-83,
The obvious structural cracks in
Kitchens
' original foundation-both conceptual and practical-have been widely recognized.
The practical fallacies in the original justification for the
Kitchens
rule are equally apparent. When there is
nothing in the record to indicate either that defense counsel was aware of the constitutional claim at issue or that counsel intentionally opted to forgo every possible objection to the defective instruction, it is unrealistic to infer, as
Kitchens
requires, that counsel had knowledge of the claim and intentionally abandoned it. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 538-39,
The defects in the original justification for Kitchens , then, are twofold. Kitchens relies on a fiction when the law calls for truth. And the fiction is a flimsy one at that.
2
Shortcomings of the New Kitchens Rationale
Apparently recognizing these flaws in Kitchens ' foundation, both the state and the majority have now jettisoned the legal fiction rationale. In the present case, they take pains to disavow Kitchens ' premise that defense counsel, merely having reviewed and acquiesced in a proposed jury charge, may be presumed to have considered and rejected every potential challenge thereto.
Instead, to replace the missing cornerstone, the state now offers-and the majority embraces-a new justification for Kitchens ' implied waiver theory. It goes as follows: "[W]hen the trial court asks counsel to make an informed and binding judgment regarding whether to accept the jury instructions and counsel acquiesces, counsel waives the procedural right to object to the instructions on any of the multitude of possible grounds that counsel might presently be aware of or later perceive." (Emphasis added.) In other words, Kitchens now rests on the theory that defense counsel, by acquiescing in or assenting to the court's jury charge, knowingly and voluntarily relinquishes not a set of specific challenges or objections thereto but, rather, the procedural right of the defendant to later complain about any aspect of the charge. In the remainder of this part of this opinion, I explain why the state's new rationale fares no better than the old one, and why it does not warrant a departure from our pre- Kitchens jurisprudence.
The state contends that its new theory does not, in fact, break any new ground but simply applies the preexisting doctrine that the "waiver of the right to exercise a right precludes [the] later assertion of any and all claims bundled within that right." The state argues that this sort of procedural waiver is well established, both in the Golding context and with respect to the waiver of other constitutional rights. The argument fails on many levels.
I begin by observing that the state's new theory fails to draw the proper parallel between other constitutional rights and the one at issue in
Kitchens
. When a defendant waives freedoms such as the right to counsel or
the right to trial by jury, he is waiving just that. What he surrenders, fundamentally, is the assistance of an attorney, or the presence of a jury to decide his fate. That he may later be barred from complaining on appeal that he was deprived of his sixth amendment rights is a
consequence
of that waiver, but the ability to appeal per se is not the right that is waived. In
Kitchens
cases, by the same token, what the defendant allegedly waives is not a general procedural right to object or appeal but, rather, the due process right to be tried by a jury that has been properly instructed on the essential elements of the charged crimes, the state's burden of proof, and other constitutionally significant points of law. See, e.g.,
State
v.
Avila
,
Before I discuss the specific flaws in the state's new macro waiver theory, I review the well established principles
that govern the law of waiver. "The party alleged to have waived a right must have had both knowledge of the existing right and the intention of forgoing it." Black's Law Dictionary, supra, p. 1813 (defining "waiver"); see also
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 469,
To summarize the governing law, in order to find that a defendant has waived by implication a constitutional right, it must be established (1) unequivocally (2) that the defendant is generally aware of the costs and benefits of waiving the right, and (3) that, with the choice either to retain or relinquish the right, the defendant voluntarily opts to abandon it. Accordingly, if it could be established unequivocally that defense counsel did in fact knowingly and voluntarily waive her client's procedural right to object to a trial court's proposed jury charge, then I might agree that the client could be precluded on appeal from challenging particular aspects of the jury charge, even defects of which the defendant and defense counsel were unaware at the time of trial. The problem is, in the typical Kitchens scenario, none of these three preconditions for a valid implied waiver is in fact satisfied. Kitchens improperly presumes waiver in the absence of clear evidence thereof; it does so despite the fact that no reasonable defendant or defense counsel would knowingly execute such a waiver; and it deprives the defendant of the ability to choose not to waive his rights, rendering meaningless both the concept of a right and that of a waiver.
The first problem with the state's new theory is that it, no less than the original
Kitchens
rationale, violates the fundamental principle that the waiver of a criminal defendant's constitutional rights cannot be presumed or imputed, but must be demonstrated clearly and unequivocally. "[T]o establish a waiver of a legal right, there must be a clear, unequivocal, and decisive act of a party showing such a purpose." 28 Am. Jur. 2d, supra, § 183, p. 648; see also
Gardner
v.
New London
, supra,
A necessary corollary of this principle is that there is a strong presumption against a finding of waiver, especially a waiver of the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant. See, e.g.,
North Carolina
v.
Butler
,
It is crystal clear, then, that the concept of implied waiver is not a talisman that courts can raise whenever they would prefer not to consider an unpreserved claim on appeal. Rather, an implied waiver must be a true waiver, knowing and voluntary, and courts must be equally certain before concluding that a defendant has waived by implication his fundamental rights. The only difference between express and implied waiver is that, in the latter case, it is the defendant's conduct, rather than his statements, that leaves no doubt of his intent to waive his rights. So, with respect to the fifth amendment right against self-incrimination, for example, waiver may be inferred when a suspect or a defendant, having been properly instructed as to his right to remain silent, proceeds to make a statement to the police or to testify in his own defense. Under those circumstances, assuming that the suspect or the defendant understands what is meant by the right to remain silent, his subsequent choice to make a statement or to testify
necessarily
implies a voluntary intent to waive that right. See, e.g.,
State
v.
Talton
,
The second problem with the state's new macro waiver theory is that, unlike with constitutional protections such as the right to counsel and the right against self-incrimination, there is no reason either to conclude or to assume that the defendant in a typical
Kitchens
scenario has made a knowing and intelligent decision that the benefits of waiving the right outweigh the costs. Although it is true that a defendant need not have an omniscient understanding of every possible repercussion of such a decision in order to execute a valid waiver, a reviewing court must at least assure itself that the defendant is aware of the basic tradeoffs involved. For example, a defendant who opts to testify in his own defense must understand that, in order to obtain the benefits of setting before the jury his version of the facts and his believability as a witness, he must expose himself to the risks associated with cross-examination and impeachment. See, e.g.,
Brown
v.
United States
,
The state's new theory, namely, that a defendant knowingly chooses to waive not specific objections but, rather, the right to object, presents in turn a new difficulty: why would a defendant ever knowingly waive the right to challenge legally deficient jury instructions when he receives nothing whatsoever in return? For each of the other rights to which the state and the majority analogize the right to a properly instructed jury that was at issue in
Kitchens
, a defendant presumably understands that he will derive some important benefit in exchange for relinquishing the right and, possibly, the ability to appeal if unforeseen problems later arise. For example, a defendant forgoes: the right to counsel for the ability to control his own representation; the right against self-incrimination for the opportunity to testify in his own defense and to tell the jury his side of the story; the right to a jury trial for the ability to have a dispassionate and legally knowledgeable judge determine his guilt; and the right to a trial for the reduced sentencing risk associated with a guilty plea.
With
Kitchens
, by contrast, one is hard pressed to identify any reason why an informed, intelligent defendant, or defense counsel, would ever choose to waive the right to argue that the jury was improperly charged as to the elements of the charged crimes, the state's burden of proof, or other constitutionally significant legal principles.
The third-and perhaps most significant-flaw in the state's new theory of implied waiver is that it improperly assumes that defense counsel in a
Kitchens
case
voluntarily
chooses to relinquish the defendant's right to challenge the jury instructions on appeal. In order for
a decision "to be deemed voluntary, it must be the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice."
United States
v.
Garcia
,
An obvious solution to this conundrum would be to allow counsel under those circumstances to inform the court that, following a careful review of the proposed charge, she is not presently aware of any defects but that her client wishes to retain his due process rights to a properly instructed jury should he later become aware of any defects in the charge. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 541,
Emphasis in original.)
At the most fundamental level, a criminal defendant cannot be said to have a constitutional right to a properly instructed jury if he can be
forced
to waive that right against his will and if the law provides no mechanism through which he can retain it if he so chooses. If the majority wishes to decide, for reasons of public policy, that the right to a properly instructed jury will be
forfeited
if not timely exercised,
C
Kitchens Does Not Reflect Sound Judicial or Public Policy
In part I B of this opinion, I explained why I continue to believe that, from a descriptive standpoint, defense counsel who merely acquiesces in a trial court's proposed jury instructions does not thereby signify her client's unequivocal knowing and voluntary intent to relinquish any and all claims, both known and unknown, that the instructions are constitutionally deficient. Because mere acquiescence does not satisfy the well established requirements for a waiver of a defendant's constitutional rights, and because we consistently have held that unpreserved claims that satisfy the four prongs of Golding are reviewable on appeal unless waived, that should be the end of the story. However, because both the state and the majority also have offered various policy rationales why such claims should be treated as if they have been waived, I take this opportunity to reiterate why, from a normative standpoint, I do not believe that the Kitchens rule reflects sound judicial or public policy.
Rules of reviewability, such as
Golding
, require that we weigh the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant against the interests of the state in the prompt and efficient administration of justice. See, e.g.,
P. Westen, supra,
The availability of
Golding
review is especially important in the jury instruction context because of the substantial risk that erroneous instructions, once entrenched, will taint the results of, and go unchallenged in, numerous criminal prosecutions. Several of our recent
Kitchens
cases, including the companion case to the present case; see
State
v.
Herring
,
State
v.
Johnson
, supra,
In total, of the nearly twenty appeals decided in Connecticut in the five years following our decision in
Kitchens
in which the state argued unsuccessfully that an unpreserved claim of instructional error had been waived, or conceded that such a claim had not been waived, the reviewing court found instructional error-either harmless or reversible-in approximately 40 percent of the cases.
clarifying common-law right of bail bondsman to apprehend principal),
State
v.
Burke
,
On the other side of the ledger, the state and the majority contend that Kitchens claims should be treated as unreviewable primarily for reasons of expediency and fairness. Neither rationale is persuasive.
With respect to expediency, finality, and judicial economy, the argument for retaining Kitchens appears to be animated by the antithetical fears that, if we were to return to the state of the law before Kitchens , either (1) this court and especially the Appellate Court would be inundated by and forced to dedicate scare judicial resources to resolving nonmeritorious jury instruction claims concocted after the fact by overzealous appellate counsel, or (2) an abundance of meritorious claims would result in the reversal of otherwise valid convictions and the need for costly retrials. In fact, the available data suggest that both of these speculative fears are largely unfounded.
With respect to the former concern, there is little evidence that, prior to
Kitchens
, our appellate system was bogged down trying to resolve a disproportionately high number of trivial or nonmeritorious claims challenging the constitutionality of criminal jury instructions. A thorough review of all of the claims of unpreserved error raised by criminal defendants in this court and the Appellate Court during the sixteen years leading up to our consideration of
Golding
, for example, revealed that 10.1 percent of jury instruction claims resulted in a finding of harmful error, whereas only 8.6 percent of noninstructional claims merited reversal. See
State
v.
Golding
, Conn. Supreme Court Records & Briefs, May Term, 1989, Appendix to the Defendant's Supplemental Brief pp. A1-A103 (surveying cases). By contrast, almost none of the claims that certain statements or testimony had been improperly admitted resulted in reversible error; see
Moreover, it is now clear that any lightening of our appellate docket as a result of
Kitchens
has been more than offset by what has become a veritable cottage industry in
Kitchens
litigation. That is to say, rather than dedicating our resources to resolving a defendant's legal claim on the merits, this court and the Appellate Court now expend significantly more effort resolving allegations by the state that a particular jury instructional
claim has been waived and, therefore, is not entitled to appellate review. Because
Kitchens
calls for "a close examination of the record and the particular facts and circumstances of each case";
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 483,
Of course, judicial efforts do not always correlate perfectly to page counts in the official court reports. In some cases, however, it is beyond cavil that the resources we are dedicating to resolving
Kitchens
quibbles could be better spent interpreting the law. Consider
State
v.
Davis
,
This is especially true in light of the fact that the failure to review a claim on direct appeal often will result in the need for a more resource intensive habeas trial on the same issue. As we explained in
State
v.
Elson
,
Nor is there much support for the concern that overruling
Kitchens
would disturb settled decisions and force the state to retry criminal convictions long after the fact. In reality, and as the majority is forced to concede, "the number of cases in which a defendant obtain[ed] reversal of his conviction on the basis of
Golding
review ... [prior to
Kitchens
was] negligible."
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 523,
The state's second set of policy arguments relates to questions of fairness. I understand the state's position to be that defense counsel who fails to raise a potentially meritorious challenge during the charging conference does so either for tactical reasons or inadvertently. If the decision is tactical, the state contends, we should not give the defendant a second bite at the apple and permit counsel to try out a different tactic on appeal when the tactic utilized at trial was unsuccessful. By contrast, if the failure to object is inadvertent, then we should adopt rules of reviewability that will incentivize greater diligence or, in the absence of such rules, leave to the habeas courts any claims that counsel's performance was ineffective. In either case, the state believes that allowing a defendant to press on appeal objections that his counsel failed to raise at trial would be unfair both to the state and to the trial court.
Although the state's concerns are well taken, I ultimately find its arguments to be unpersuasive. Turning first to the question of tactical or strategic waiver, I
agree with the defendant that it is almost inconceivable that defense counsel would intentionally hold back a potentially meritorious objection and knowingly permit her client's constitutional rights to be trampled, solely so that, if her client is ultimately convicted, appellate counsel might advance a winning argument on appeal. As Judge Henry J. Friendly once explained, "it is exceedingly hard to visualize a case [in which] a defendant or his lawyer would deliberately lay aside a meritorious claim so as to raise it after the defendant was jailed." H. Friendly, "Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments,"
When the state and the majority presume that a decision to forgo potential objections to the trial court's proposed jury charge is strategic, however, I do not believe that this is the sort of strategy they have in mind.
As I already discussed; see part I A of this opinion; when the record clearly suggests that defense counsel's failure to raise an instructional challenge at trial was the result of a tactical decision, I agree with the majority that the unpreserved claim should be deemed waived and unreviewable on appeal. This often will be the case, for instance, when counsel does not seek an instruction as to lesser included offenses in the hope that the jury will find the defendant not guilty of the more serious
charge; see, e.g.,
United States
v.
Estrada
-
Fernandez
,
What I cannot agree to is
Kitchens
'
presumption
that counsel's decision not to raise an objection at trial must be knowing and strategic, even when the record contains no indication thereof. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 470, 481-83,
Lastly, the state contends that, even if counsel's failure to object is not strategic but, rather, merely inadvertent, we should treat any unpreserved objections as waived because such a rule will provide defense counsel, the state, and the trial court with an incentive to identify any instructional errors at trial, when they can be readily corrected. I must confess that I am at a loss to understand the majority's apparent belief that treating unpreserved challenges as waived, and insulating them from appellate review, will somehow incentivize the state and trial courts to exercise greater diligence in unearthing such errors. It is the state and the trial court, after all, that stand to lose should a conviction be overturned as a result of the court's instructional error. One would think that, if any extra motivation is required for them to look after the defendant's constitutional rights, it would be the possibility of reversal that would inspire them, rather than the impossibility. In any event, I will focus my analysis on the state's argument that the Kitchens rule is needed to motivate defense counsel to adequately scrutinize the court's instructions at trial. There are at least three problems with the state's argument.
First, the majority has provided no support, either empirical or anecdotal, for its assumption that denying review under
Kitchens
will reduce the number of cases in which defense counsel fails to identify and object to instructional errors due to mistake or inadvertence. As both courts and commentators have recognized, such a rule offers little deterrent value with respect to such oversights, "only marginally advances systemic fairness and does so by
exacting a heavy price in individual fairness."
State
v.
Hargrove
,
Second, even if
Kitchens
did create an incentive for defense counsel to exhaustively scrutinize each of the trial court's draft instructions for any possible error, it is far from clear that more efficient administration of
justice would result. As the United States Supreme Court has cautioned, "such a rule would result in counsel's inevitably making a long and virtually useless laundry list of objections to [instructions] that were plainly supported by existing precedent."
Johnson
v.
United States
,
Third, neither the state nor the majority has provided any compelling rationale for carving out this single exception to our general rule of Golding review. We continue to review unpreserved claims of constitutional error that arises during other phases of the trial-everything from voir dire to the taking of evidence to jury deliberations-even though a Kitchens -type rule arguably would incentivize defense counsel to more diligently root out error in those stages of the process as well. Why then a special rule for jury instructions?
The only answer that the state offers is that the drafting of jury instructions is unique in that, at least in theory, it is a more collaborative process, during which the rules of practice encourage the state, defense counsel, and the trial court to pause and jointly reflect on the proper way to instruct the jury on the law. See Practice Book §§ 42-16 through 42-19. This argument proves too much.
The exact same arguments that the state makes with respect to jury instructions could be made with respect
to other phases of trial, such as the selection and exclusion of jurors during voir dire. See W. Pizzi & M. Hoffman, supra,
Lastly, I turn to the argument, advanced by the state and embraced by this court in
Kitchens
, that the
Kitchens
rule does not unfairly penalize criminal defendants for their attorneys' inadvertent failure to object to defective jury instructions because many defendants can obtain relief by filing a habeas action alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 482, 496-98,
First, with five and one-half years now having passed since we decided
Kitchens
, time and experience have borne out my concerns, and those of Justice Katz, that the majority's reliance on habeas proceedings as a panacea was seriously misplaced. When
Kitchens
was decided, we predicted that the rule would increase rather than
decrease the burden on judicial resources because any time saved in avoiding appellate review of instructional error would be more than offset by the need for a full habeas trial on the issue. In fact, of the six cases decided in the year following our
Kitchens
decision in which the Appellate Court found claims of instructional error waived under
Kitchens
,
When
Kitchens
was decided, we also warned that habeas actions would only push back the inevitable, as petitioners whose ineffective assistance of counsel
claims were denied on collateral review ultimately would return to the Appellate Court for review of those decisions. Sure enough, the first generation of post-
Kitchens
habeas appeals is now coming home to roost. See, e.g.,
Bharrat
v.
Commissioner of Correction
,
In addition, when
Kitchens
was decided, we warned that the vindication of meritorious claims would be unreasonably and unfairly delayed. This prediction was realized in
State
v.
Lahai
,
Second, I am troubled by the state's argument that a defendant who is barred by Kitchens from raising a claim on appeal, and whose claim is not a candidate for habeas relief, has not thereby been treated unfairly because the same incorrect law also may have been applied to other defendants' cases. I would remind the state that the defendant's claim is not that he was treated less favorably than others by the criminal justice system, in violation of his right to equal protection of the law. His claim, rather, is that he was deprived of his fundamental right to due process of law and, possibly, wrongly imprisoned as a result. The fact that other defendants also may have been denied a fair trial will be of little consolation, no more than one who is deprived of the right to practice his religion, or whose land is taken without just compensation, will be content to know that his neighbor was treated with equal injustice.
For all of the foregoing reasons, in the absence of clear evidence that a criminal defendant or defense counsel actually intended to waive a claim that a jury instruction violated the defendant's constitutional rights, I fail to see any reason why this court should insist on treating all such claims as if they had been waived.
D
The Kitchens Rule Can Easily Be Circumvented
As previously discussed, in
Kitchens
, I explained how the
presumption
that a criminal defendant intends to
waive his right to challenge the jury instructions can be overcome if defense counsel "simply ... inform[s] the trial court that he has not raised a constitutional challenge to the charge
because he is unaware of any such claim
,
and not because he has elected to waive the claim
." (Emphasis in original.)
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 541,
In
Kitchens
, the majority offered four arguments as to why, in its view, even an express statement that the defendant does not wish to waive any unpreserved instructional claims would be insufficient to overcome the presumption of implied waiver. See
The majority first argues that, if defense counsel is sincere in the statement that she is unaware of any constitutional defects in the court's charge, but such a defect does in fact exist, then counsel is necessarily ineffective and the habeas court provides the appropriate forum to address the problem. See
The majority in
Kitchens
also asserted that I "cite[d] no legal support [in my concurrence in that case] for a blanket preservation by trial counsel of all constitutional challenges to jury instructions merely on the basis of counsel's in-court statement that he or she is 'unaware' of a constitutional violation."
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 488 n.25,
The majority in
Kitchens
also worried that "such a ploy could open up a 'Pandora's box,' flooding Connecticut courts with cases alleging improper jury instructions on every conceivable issue and making a mockery of the trial court's attempt to query and solicit counsel's
input on the jury instructions."
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 488 n.25,
Lastly, the majority in
Kitchens
indicated that such a statement by defense counsel "would conflict directly with the mandate in rule 1.1 of the Rules of Professional Conduct that requires adequate preparation by counsel in representing a client, which presumably would include sufficient familiarity with the jury instructions to identify instructions that are constitutionally flawed."
E
Stare Decisis
Lastly, I am not persuaded by the state's argument that stare decisis, or respect for judicial precedent, requires adherence to
Kitchens
. It is well established that "a court should not overrule its earlier decisions unless the most cogent reasons and inescapable logic require it." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
State
v.
Salamon
,
First, the principal concerns that underlie the respect for judicial precedent-the need for stability and predictability in the law, and the importance of maintaining the institutional legitimacy of the judiciary-are at their nadir in cases such as this one, in which the highest court of a jurisdiction adopts prudential rules to manage
its own docket and to determine which types of claims it will review. Although the parties read the history of our
Golding
jurisprudence differently, there is no dispute that the rules we have adopted to govern the review of unpreserved claims have evolved over the past several decades as we have sought to balance the various considerations discussed in part I C of this opinion. See generally
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 447,
The second reason stare decisis does not require that we retain the Kitchens rule is because there are no reliance interests that would justify the retention of that rule in the face of its evident deficiencies. The only conceivable detrimental reliance on Kitchens would occur if the state, in other cases presently on appeal, had opted not to respond to appellants' unpreserved claims of instructional error on the merits and instead argued only that those claims were waived under Kitchens . If there are examples of this sort of reliance, any unfairness may be remedied simply by affording the state an additional opportunity to brief the unpreserved claims on the merits (or to argue that the claims are unreviewable on a ground unrelated to the Kitchens rule).
Third, and most important, we are not bound to retain the Kitchens rule because not only was Kitchens wrongly decided in a such a way as to work a manifest injustice on criminal defendants whose constitutional rights have been violated and who had no intention of waiving those rights, but the rule also does irreparable damage to our broader waiver jurisprudence. As I explained in part I B of this opinion, the concept of waiver is fundamental not only in the context of criminal procedure but in virtually every area of the law. By muddying the concept in Kitchens , and by further confusing the issue in the present case, the majority risks infecting broad swaths of the law that rely on a clear and cogent distinction between waiver and forfeiture. Ultimately, in continuing to add epicycles to Kitchens in an attempt to salvage its flawed implied waiver theory, the majority itself implicitly acknowledges that the case is devoid of any precedential value.
II
THE DEFENDANT'S CLAIM IS UNREVIEWABLE
Applying the foregoing principles to the present case, I would conclude, contrary to the majority, that defense counsel did not implicitly waive the jury instruction claims that the defendant raises on appeal. There is absolutely no indication in the record that defense counsel was aware of the alleged errors but declined to object to them for strategic or other reasons. I agree with the defendant that there is no conceivable reason why, in a case that hinged on a contested eyewitness identification, it would have been beneficial to him not to seek a jury instruction that fully and accurately stated the considerations that might have called the reliability of the eyewitness testimony into doubt. Nor is there any indication, let alone unequivocal evidence, that defense counsel intended to waive the defendant's procedural right to raise such claims on appeal. Accordingly, the state has failed to meet its burden of proving that defense counsel, or the defendant himself, knowingly and voluntarily waived the claims at issue in this appeal.
Although I do not believe that the defendant's unpreserved jury instruction claims were waived or induced, I nevertheless agree with the state that they are unreviewable under
Golding
. The defendant's claims are that the trial court, in drafting its instructions with respect to eyewitness identification, incorporated certain of the Judicial Branch's standard
criminal jury instructions that favored the state but omitted those standard instructions that would have supported a defense of misidentification. It is well established, however, that a trial court's failure to give appropriate eyewitness misidentification instructions "is at most [an instance] of instructional error rather than of constitutional error."
State
v.
Cerilli
,
Under
State
v.
Golding
, supra,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Cerilli
,
The difference between a waiver and a forfeiture is that a "forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right," whereas a "waiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
United States
v.
Olano
,
"When a party consents to or expresses satisfaction with an issue at trial, claims arising from that issue are deemed waived and may not be reviewed on appeal." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Mozell
v.
Commissioner of Correction
,
"Under the two-pronged [test of
Strickland
v.
Washington
,
This court has yet to clarify whether a claim that is deemed waived pursuant to
Kitchens
nevertheless is subject to review on direct appeal under the plain error doctrine. See
State
v.
McClain
,
A search of Connecticut appellate jurisprudence postdating Kitchens , encompassing a period of approximately five years, returns more than forty cases applying its holding, with varying results.
For this reason, applying Kitchens is akin to playing a game of slow-motion, jurisprudential "whack-a-mole." The reviewing court considering the defendant's direct appeal may slap down an unpreserved instructional claim as waived, and therefore unreviewable, today, only to have the claim pop up anew in a habeas court elsewhere in the state in the future.
As this court discussed in
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 477-80,
See
State
v.
Hampton
,
In light of the weight of this authority, I am not persuaded by the majority's contention that, "[e]ven before our decision in
Kitchens
, Connecticut law provided that approval of the jury instructions by trial counsel acts as a waiver of
all
potential jury instruction claims and not merely claims arising from jury instructions that defense counsel specifically discussed on the record at trial." (Emphasis in original.) Specifically, neither of the two cases cited as authority for that proposition appear to support it, because in each case, the particular instruction at issue on appeal
was
discussed and accepted by trial counsel on the record. See
State
v.
Holness
,
The nature and degree of focus may have varied, but, at a minimum, there was an actual substantive discussion of the instruction at issue that indicates that counsel truly was thinking about that instruction. In contrast, a rote call and response exercise, pursuant to which a trial court reads through a proposed jury charge on the record, pausing after each instruction to secure counsel's agreement therewith, would not result in an implied waiver of claims of error as to each approved instruction, absent additional, meaningful discussion of the contents of an instruction.
This is not to say that, in all cases in which a focused discussion occurs, an implied waiver inevitably will be found. For example, the specific instruction at issue may be lengthy or complex, counsel may not have had much time to review it, and the on-the-record discussion may have been limited to an isolated aspect of the instruction. Under the totality of those circumstances, inferring waiver of a claim pertaining to an entirely different portion of the instruction would not be reasonable.
See, e.g.,
United States
v.
Polouizzi
,
In the federal courts, unpreserved claims of trial error that have not been waived are reviewable pursuant to rule 52 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which provides that "[a] plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the [District] [C]ourt's attention." The United States Supreme Court has articulated a four-pronged rule to determine whether rule 52 (b) review will be afforded: "First, there must be an error or defect-some sort of [d]eviation from a legal rule-
that has not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned, i.e., affirmatively waived, by the appellant
.... Second, the legal error must be clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute. ... Third, the error must have affected the appellant's substantial rights .... Fourth ... if the above three prongs are satisfied, the court of appeals has the discretion to remedy the error-discretion which ought to be exercised only if the error seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." (Citations omitted; emphasis altered; internal quotation marks omitted.)
Puckett
v.
United States
,
I disagree with the majority that it is appropriate to have fewer jury instructional claims reviewable under our state waiver rule than under federal waiver doctrine, because relief for a proven violation is more automatic under Golding than under federal plain error review, which provides for discretionary relief. It is axiomatic that Golding review is limited to claims of constitutional magnitude, whereas federal plain error review is available for nonconstitutional claims as well. Accordingly, it stands to reason that more automatic relief should follow under Golding , because it necessarily will apply to a smaller universe of more egregious claims.
Our case law permits juries to draw reasonable and logical inferences from the evidence presented at trial, and disallows them from engaging in speculation and conjecture.
State
v.
Morrill
,
Relatedly, I disagree with the majority that implying a broad waiver of claims of instructional error, both known and unknown, pursuant to Kitchens is analogous to a defendant's abandonment of various claims in connection with his or her waiver of other constitutional rights, specifically, the rights to a trial, counsel or a probable cause hearing. In each of the latter three instances, a criminal defendant overtly and consciously chooses to relinquish claims, known or unknown, in exchange for something he or she values-a favorable plea, the right to self-representation or a strategic advantage, respectively. This is unquestionably true, notwithstanding the majority's assessment of the benefit received, in the case of a waiver of counsel, as negligible, or its focus on what a defendant subject to a Kitchens waiver retains rather than on that which he or she has forfeited. In contrast, with an implied waiver pursuant to Kitchens , the defendant is presumed , by operation of law, to have abandoned a valuable right to appeal, not in exchange for something, but by merely agreeing to the proposed jury instructions. In my view, when a waiver is to be implied from circumstances and is not the result of any conscious quid pro quo, the scope of that waiver should be restrictive rather than broad.
Conceivably, in a particular case, counsel may agree with a specific jury instruction, after discussion of that instruction with the trial court, yet still be unaware of a defect therein. In such an instance, a claim relating to that defect, although deemed waived on appeal, in actuality was only forfeited. Even under those circumstances, however, I do not believe that it is fundamentally unfair to deny direct appellate review of the claim pursuant to
Golding
, particularly in light of the competing consideration of avoiding an ambuscade of the trial court and opposing counsel. As we explained in
Kitchens
, there are features unique to jury instructions that justify holding counsel to a higher standard of accountability for failing to preserve claims of error. See
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 482-85,
The detection of error at trial, without the necessity of an appeal, is the most desirable outcome for purposes of both fairness to defendants and the efficient operation of the court system. "Waiver is based on the principle that [c]ontemporaneous objection gives the trial court the opportunity to correct its own errors and thereby avoids unnecessary delays through appeals, reversals, and new trials." (Internal quotation marks omitted. )
In re Eternity E.
, Docket Nos. 01-2009, 01-2010,
The trial court stated: "With respect to identification, I did give an identification section in the charge which outlines on page 14 what the jury must be satisfied in making the identification including some of the factors they can consider in this evidence. However, I'm going to expand that language to include the language to the effect that in every criminal prosecution, it is the state's responsibility to show that the defendant is the person who committed the offense and if they are not satisfied of that evidence then they cannot find the defendant guilty of any particular offense. I'm going to highlight that because obviously that is an issue in this case."
See part I A of this opinion.
State
v.
Golding
,
"The distinction between a forfeiture of a right ... and a waiver of that right ... is that [w]hereas forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right, waiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Mozell
v.
Commissioner of Correction
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Fabricatore
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Hampton
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Fuller
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Coward
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Foster
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Cooper
,
The majority is, therefore, incorrect when it contends that the rationales underlying the two rules are the same and that the doctrine of induced error, no less than Kitchens ' expansive implied waiver rule, is predicated on a legal fiction. It is true that the induced error doctrine assumes that the defendant has made a strategic choice and that it holds him to the consequences of that choice. But there is no fiction therein-requesting a particular jury instruction is necessarily an exercise of trial strategy, regardless of the reason or purpose for the request-and we have made a policy determination that Golding review should not be available if the defendant later second-guesses that strategy and seeks to attack his own proposed instructions. The court in Kitchens likewise could have carved out for policy reasons a broader exception to Golding review for unpreserved jury instruction challenges when defense counsel merely acquiesces in the trial court's instructions. Its primary misstep was that, rather than being seen as further scaling back on Golding review, the Kitchens majority tried to piggyback on the doctrine of waiver by improperly labeling as implied waiver conduct that (1) often is not at all strategic, and (2) satisfies none of the criteria for a knowing, voluntary relinquishment of a fundamental right. The irony-and the fundamental slight-of-hand in Kitchens -is that it is precisely those elements of a true waiver, which exempt it from Golding review, that are lacking in a so-called Kitchens waiver.
"The doctrine of judicial estoppel ... advances notions of fair play by precluding a party from inducing judicial action by taking one legal position and then taking a contrary position later to achieve further advantage over the same adverse party."
State
v.
Hargrove
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Rodriguez
-
Roman
,
For this reason, the majority is simply incorrect when it contends that overruling Kitchens also would require that we overrule those decisions. Each of those decisions was properly decided under our long-standing, pre- Kitchens implied waiver jurisprudence.
I recognize that, prior to
Kitchens
, the Appellate Court in certain instances found that unpreserved claims of jury instruction error had been waived solely on the basis of defense counsel's acquiescence in the trial court's draft charge. The Appellate Court reached that result, however, only because it, like the majority in
Kitchens
, relied on cases such as
State
v.
Cooper
, supra,
Curiously, the majority notes that it is "not aware of any case in which a reviewing court has construed 'affirmative acceptance' as meaning passive acquiescence," and yet it declines to address any of these cases, none of which appears to contain even a whiff of affirmative acceptance.
The notion that Kitchens cases are so fact dependent that no guidance can be provided is a red herring. In many instances, the trial court record reveals only that, when given the opportunity to object to any of the court's instructions, defense counsel merely indicates that she has no objections, that the instructions are acceptable or okay, or something to that effect. There is absolutely no reason why this court cannot and should not offer litigants and reviewing courts general guidance as to which "magic words" will result in waiver in those circumstances, and which will allow the defendant to preserve his appellate rights. See part I D of this opinion.
Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines an "inference" as "the act of passing from one or more propositions, statements, or judgments considered as true to another the truth of which is believed to follow from that of the former ...." (Emphasis added.) Webster's Third New International Dictionary (2002) p. 1158.
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 500-501,
Although there are, no doubt, instances in which reliance on a legal fiction is necessary or appropriate, the court's unapologetic and inapt reliance on the concept in
Kitchens
calls to mind one well-known critique of legal fiction: "[Lawyers] feed [on] untruth, as [addicts] do [on] opium, at first from choice and with their eyes open, afterwards by habit, [until] at length they lose all shame, avow it for what it is, and swallow it with greediness, not bearing to be without it." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) L. Harmon, "Falling Off the Vine: Legal Fictions and the Doctrine of Substituted Judgment,"
I recognize that, following federal law, this court has evaluated implied waivers of a defendant's double jeopardy rights according to a different standard. See
United States
v.
Dinitz
,
The majority contends that "[t]here is no such 'exchange' because waiver of the foregoing rights is within the complete control of the defendant." Footnote 15 of the majority opinion. This makes little sense. Setting aside the fact that the majority's conclusion does not flow from its premise-the blackjack player has complete control over the decision to split a pair or to double down, but there is no doubt that each involves an exchange-the majority's premise is plainly false. It will come as some news to criminal defendants, for example, that they are in complete control of the plea bargaining process.
I do not foreclose the possibility that, in particular cases, counsel may waive this right in order to obtain a strategic benefit. As I discuss hereinafter, I agree that the right should be deemed waived in those cases in which such a strategic choice can clearly be established.
The state concedes that, in a Kitchens situation, the trial court asks defense counsel to make a "binding judgment" as to whether to accept the proposed instructions.
See part I D of this opinion.
See footnote 3 of this opinion. Although the majority in
Kitchens
purported to maintain the well established distinction between forfeiture and waiver; see
State
v.
Kitchens
, supra, 299 Conn. at 474,
The fundamental flaw in the majority's reasoning is essentially the inverse of what philosophers have termed the " 'naturalistic fallacy' ";
United States
v.
Chen
,
See Judge Support Services, Superior Court Operations, Connecticut Judicial Branch Criminal Jury Instructions, available at http://jud.ct.gov/JI/Criminal/Criminal.pdf (last visited October 11, 2016).
The majority accurately notes that, in
Pond
, the state, in arguing unsuccessfully that Pond's claim was unreviewable, cited induced error rather than implied waiver. The reason that the state did not also contend that Pond's claim had been waived apparently was that the trial court in that case did not hold an
on-the-record
charging conference or provide counsel with an advance copy of the charge, and thus did not satisfy the
Kitchens
criteria for implied waiver.
State
v.
Pond
,
See
State
v.
Johnson
, supra, 316 Conn. at 48,
I am not persuaded by the state's argument that, if these rationales were compelling, they also would require the review of unpreserved claims that a defendant truly waives or induces. The rationales that I have discussed for reviewing unpreserved challenges to a jury instruction in cases in which defense counsel merely acquiesces are either muted or trumped by distinct considerations of fairness and reliance in the context of waiver or induced error. See footnotes 10 and 11 and accompanying text of this opinion.
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Terry
,
See, e.g.,
State
v.
Danforth
,
Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, which filed an amicus brief in
State
v.
Herring
, supra,
In the five years preceding our decision in
Kitchens
, for example, this court and the Appellate Court found harmless unpreserved instructional error in more than one dozen cases, including
State
v.
Rodriguez
-
Roman
,
It would be disturbing indeed if the majority, having rejected the "cynical" view that a state's attorney might allow an instructional error to go unnoticed in order to obtain a strategic advantage; footnote 18 of the majority opinion; were to adopt an equally cynical presumption regarding the conduct of defense counsel.
If the majority is truly concerned that many unpreserved claims of instructional error are the result of secret strategic plans that are not apparent from the trial court record, then those concerns easily can be addressed simply by requiring that appeals alleging instructional error be accompanied by an affidavit by trial counsel stating that she was unaware of the alleged defects at the time of trial and that the defendant did not intend to waive any objections thereto. Cf. General Statutes § 52-190a (a) (attorney filing medical malpractice action must attach certificate stating that reasonable inquiry gave rise to good faith belief that grounds exist for action against each defendant). In the event that the state had cause to question the veracity of such a representation, the matter could be remanded to the trial court to make the necessary findings. See Practice Book § 60-2 (9) ; see also
Henry
v.
Mississippi
,
It bears noting that, whereas the rules of practice governing jury trials expressly inform the defendant that he may be deemed to have waived the right to a jury trial if he fails to make a timely election; Practice Book § 42-1 ; there is no corresponding waiver provision in the rules governing jury instructions.
It bears emphasizing in this respect that
Golding
itself was an instructional error case, and the
Golding
test clearly was intended from the outset to govern such claims. See
State
v.
Golding
, supra,
See
State
v.
Beebe
,
See
Carrion
v.
Warden
, Superior Court, judicial district of Tolland, Docket No. TSR-CV-11-4004163-S (December 15, 2015);
Bharrat
v.
Commissioner of Correction
, Superior Court, judicial district of Tolland, Docket No. TSR-CV-12-4004615-S (August 27, 2014), appeal dismissed,
The majority contends that, in
Lahai
, the Appellate Court "cited
Kitchens
only for its passing reference to the doctrine of induced error, and not for its clarification of the implied waiver rule." This is plainly false. Although it is true that the Appellate Court concluded that Lahai had induced the challenged error; see
State
v.
Lahai
, supra, 128 Conn. App. at 457,
Although I largely agree with the concurring opinion of Chief Justice Rogers, I do not share her view that "specific, on-the-record discussion of the particular instruction later claimed to be defective on appeal," followed by defense counsel's explicit assent to that instruction, is sufficient to establish waiver by implication of the defendant's constitutional right to a properly instructed jury. (Emphasis in original.) Text accompanying footnote 10 of Chief Justice Rogers' concurring opinion. As I explained in this opinion, I would find waiver only when the well established criteria for waiver are actually satisfied. Although I understand that certain federal courts follow an approach similar to that advocated by Chief Justice Rogers, I do not believe that approach ever has been the law of this state.
