State v. Obas

STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. MYCALL OBAS

SC 19290

Supreme Court of Connecticut

Argued October 5, 2015

February 9, 2016

Rogers, C. J., and Palmer, Zarella, Eveleigh, McDonald, Espinosa and Robinson, Js.

Leon F. Dalbec, Jr., senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Stephen J. Sedensky III, state's attorney, and Sean P. McGuinness, assistant state's attorney, for the appellant (state).

Neal Cone, senior assistant public defender, with whom were Rosemary Chapdelaine, senior assistant public defender, and, on the brief, Lauren Weisfeld, public defender, for the appellee (defendant).

Opinion

EVELEIGH, J. The state appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court affirming the decision of the trial court granting the application of the defendant, Mycall Obas, to be exempted from continued registration as a sex offender pursuant to General Statutes § 54-251 (b).¹ On appeal, the state claims that the Appellate Court improperly concluded that the trial court had the authority to grant the defendant's application for an exemption from registration approximately seven years after he had commenced registration notwithstanding his plea agreement with the state.² We conclude that the Appellate Court properly determined that the trial court had the authority to grant the defendant's application for an exemption from registration and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The opinion of the Appellate Court sets forth the following undisputed facts and procedural history. "The defendant pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault in the second degree [in violation of General Statutes § 53a-71 (a) (1)] on December 11, 2003. The plea stemmed from a 2002 incident when the defendant was eighteen years old and a high school senior. The victim was a fifteen year old student who attended the same school as the defendant. According to the prosecutor, the victim never complained that her sexual involvement with the defendant was not consensual.

"The defendant cooperated fully with the police investigation and agreed to testify [in a related criminal prosecution]. As part of the plea agreement struck between the defendant and the state, the defendant received a ten year sentence of imprisonment, suspended after the mandatory minimum nine months, followed by ten years of probation. The prosecutor explained to the court: 'The conditions would be: to register as a sex offender, that's a ten year registration . . . . [The] sex offender evaluation and any treatment deemed necessary. No [unsupervised] contact with any individual . . . under [sixteen] and no contact, whatsoever, directly or indirectly with the victim.' There was no agreement between the defendant and the state that the defendant would never seek modification of the conditions of probation.

"Following the prosecutor's recitation of the underlying facts, plea agreement, and recommendation for a split sentence followed by probation with special conditions, the court canvassed the defendant.

" 'The Court: You've heard the agreed upon recommendation, which is ten years, execution suspended after nine months, which is a mandatory minimum, ten years of probation, standard issues—standard conditions of probation, special conditions of sex offender evaluation and treatment, as deemed necessary . . . . Registration under sex offender status for [ten] years,no contact with the victim and no unsupervised contact with anyone under . . . [sixteen] years of age. Do you understand that to be the agreed upon recommendation?

" 'The Defendant: Yes, Your Honor.'

"The court accepted the defendant's plea and imposed sentence in accordance with the agreed upon disposition. The defendant was ordered, '[i]n addition to the standard conditions of probation,' to register as a sex offender for a period of ten years, to undergo sex offender evaluation and treatment as deemed necessary, to have no unsupervised contact with anyone under [the] age [of] sixteen and to have no contact with the victim.

"Upon his release from custody in November, 2004, the defendant began reporting to the Office of Adult Probation, registering as a sex offender and receiving sex offender treatment. He violated his probation in 2005 by failing to report a change of address following his parents' eviction from their home. For this violation, two additional years were added to his probation. Since the 2005 violation, the defendant has reported timely to his assigned probation officer, has continued to receive sex offender treatment, and has not engaged in any additional criminal activity. He earned a high school diploma, enrolled in community college and has maintained a full-time job.

"In 2011, the defendant filed a motion to modify the conditions of his probation. Specifically, the defendant asked that the term of his probation be reduced and that the order that he register as a sex offender be terminated. As a predicate for the hearing on the defendant's motion, the court ordered him to undergo an additional psychosexual evaluation. The evaluation concluded that the defendant presented a low risk of reoffending and that he 'would not be one whom the community should fear.' . . . Three separate probation status reports authored by the defendant's supervising officer in the sex offender unit lauded his rehabilitation and raised no objection to the defendant's requested modification.

"Following contested hearings on January 31, 2012, and April 20, 2012, the [trial] court . . . exempted the defendant from the continued obligation to register as a sex offender under § 54-251. Pursuant to § 54-251 (b), the court made findings that the defendant was under nineteen years of age at the time of the offense and that registration was not required for public safety. The court also modified the probation condition prohibiting unsupervised contact with anyone under age sixteen to allow such interactions but only to the extent approved by the Office of Adult Probation. In addition, the court allowed the defendant to travel to South Africa as approved by the Office of Adult Probation. The courtdenied that part of the defendant's motion in which he sought to reduce his probation from twelve years to ten years." (Footnotes omitted.) State v. Obas, 147 Conn. App. 465, 468-71, 83 A.3d 674 (2014).

The state appealed from the judgment of the trial court to the Appellate Court.³ Id., 471. The Appellate Court concluded as follows: (1) "§ 54-251 (b) permits a court to grant a criminal defendant's request to have an exemption from the registration requirements for sex offenders after the obligation to register has commenced where the registration is made a special condition of probation, and the court finds that the defendant's later rehabilitated status justifies modification"; id., 481; and (2) that the plea agreement in the present case did not divest "the trial court of its authority to modify or enlarge the conditions of the defendant's probation." Id., 484. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the state advances two claims in support of its position that the Appellate Court improperly affirmed the trial court's judgment granting the defendant's application for an exemption from continued registration as a sex offender. First, the state asserts that the Appellate Court improperly interpreted § 54-251 (b) as authorizing the trial court to exempt the defendant from the registration requirements of § 54-251 (a) approximately seven years after the defendant was initially required to register. In the alternative, the state asserts that, even if allowed by § 54-251 (b), the defendant in the present case was barred from filing an application for an exemption from registration pursuant to § 54-251 (b) because he had agreed to register as a sex offender for ten years in the plea agreement. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

I

The state first claims that the trial court did not have the authority under § 54-251 (b) to grant the defendant's application for an exemption from registration approximately seven years after the defendant had commenced registering as a sex offender. Specifically, the state claims that § 54-251 (b) does not permit a trial court to grant such an exemption once an individual's obligation to register has commenced.

This appeal requires us to construe the requirements of § 54-251 (b). Accordingly, "we are guided by the well established principle that [i]ssues of statutory construction raise questions of law, over which we exercise plenary review. . . . We are also guided by the plain meaning rule for statutory construction." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Cales v. Office of Victim Services, 319 Conn. 697, 701, A.3d (2015); see also General Statutes § 1-2z.

In accordance with § 1-2z, we begin with the relevant statutory text. Section 54-251 (a) sets forth the sexoffender registration requirements. Section 54-251 (b) provides the following exemption from these requirements: "Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) of this section, the court may exempt any person who has been convicted or found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect of a violation of subdivision (1) of subsection (a) of section 53a-71 from the registration requirements of this section if the court finds that such person was under nineteen years of age at the time of the offense and that registration is not required for public safety." See footnote 1 of this opinion.

The term "exempt" is not defined in § 54-251, nor is it defined in General Statutes § 54-250, which sets forth the definitions of certain key terms in chapter 969 of the General Statutes, also known as Megan's Law. See State v. Waterman, 264 Conn. 484, 485-86, 825 A.2d 63 (2003). "In the absence of a definition of terms in the statute itself, [w]e may presume . . . that the legislature intended [a word] to have its ordinary meaning in the English language, as gleaned from the context of its use. . . ....