State v. Ramos

306 Conn. 125

49 A.3d 197

STATE of Connecticut

v.Mauricio Pedraza RAMOS.

No. 18903.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 13, 2012.

Decided Aug. 28, 2012.

James B. Streeto, assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).

Nancy L. Chupak, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were John C. Smriga, state's attorney, and Richard L. Palombo, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

ROGERS, C.J., and PALMER, ZARELLA, McLACHLAN, HARPER

and VERTEFEUILLE, Js.^*

HARPER, J.

Under General Statutes (Rev. to 1999) § 54–1j (c),¹ when a noncitizen defendant has not been properly advised that a guilty plea may have certain immigration and naturalization consequences, the court is mandated to vacate the judgment of conviction and permit withdrawal of the guilty plea if the defendant “not later than three years after the acceptance of the plea” files a motion and shows that the plea and convictionmay have such a consequence. The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the trial court has jurisdiction under § 54–1j to vacate the judgment and permit withdrawal of the plea, as a matter of discretion, if the motion to vacate is filed more than three years after the court's acceptance of the plea. The defendant, Mauricio Pedraza Ramos, appeals ² from the judgment of the trial court denying his motion to vacate his judgment of conviction and to withdraw his plea, claiming that, although the trial court properly concluded that it had jurisdiction to consider his motion, it improperly concluded that the present case was not one in which the court should exercise its discretion to vacate the judgment. We conclude that the trial court improperly reached the merits of the defendant's motion without determining whether it had jurisdiction to do so, and that the trial court lacked such jurisdiction because the motion was filed outside the period prescribed under § 54–1j. Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court should have dismissed, rather than denied, the motion to vacate.

The record reveals the following undisputed facts. On June 10, 1999, the defendant, a noncitizen of the United States, entered a guilty plea pursuant to the Alford doctrine ³ to a charge of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes §§ 53a–48 and 53a–138 in connection with passing a counterfeit bill at a convenience store. The trial court, Turner, J., accepted the defendant's plea without advising him of the potential immigration consequences of the plea. Thereafter, the court rendered judgment in accordance with the plea and sentenced the defendant to a term of imprisonment of three years, execution suspended after nine months, and three years probation. Just before the end of his term of imprisonment, the defendant was informed that he was subject to an immigration detainer. At the end of that term, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now Immigration and Customs Enforcement) took the defendant into custody and instituted deportation proceedings against him. Following those proceedings, in July, 2000, the defendant was deported to his native Colombia.

In 2006, the defendant illegally reentered the United States. He thereafter married a United States citizen and fathered a child. In 2009, the defendant traveled to Puerto Rico for his honeymoon, where he was detained and charged with illegal entry as an aggravated felon. That charge was pending in federal court in Puerto Rico at the time of the proceedings at issue in this appeal.

On February 3, 2010, the defendant filed in Superior Court a motion to vacate the June, 1999 conviction and to withdraw his plea on the grounds that the plea canvass violated § 54–1j and Practice Book §§ 39–19 and 39–20,⁴ and that he was deprived of his constitutional right to conflict-free and effective representation.⁵ The trial court, Iannotti, J., denied the motion. At the outset of its memorandum of decision, the trial court noted that, in 2009, this court had overruled Appellate Court case law holding that a claim asserting that a plea was made as a result of an error of constitutional magnitude was an exception to the general rule that the court's jurisdiction over a criminal defendant terminates after the defendant's sentence has been executed. See State v. Das, 291 Conn. 356, 968 A.2d 367 (2009). Therefore, the trial court focused on the only other possible basis for jurisdiction, a statute that explicitly permits review of the defendant's motion. The trial court considered the defendant's contention that, although § 54–1j (c) imposes a three year time restriction for mandatory withdrawal of a plea, the legislative history to the 1997 amendment that substituted the three year period for previous language mandating withdrawal of the plea upon a motion filed at “any time” ⁶ indicates that the legislature did not intend to deprive a court of discretion to grant requests filed beyond the three year period if there are compelling circumstances.⁷ The court agreed that the particular colloquy on which the defendant relied could be persuasive evidence in support of his view, but pointed out that, under General Statutes § 1–2z,⁸ it was not permitted to consider such extratextual sources unless § 54–1j is ambiguous as to this issue. Ultimately, the court concluded: “The present matter can be resolved, however, regardless of whether the text of § 54–1j is plain and unambiguous. Even if a trial judge had the discretion to vacate a defendant's plea more than three years after that plea was entered, the present case would not be appropriate for the exercise of that discretion.... [T]he defendant acknowledges that he illegally reentered the United States after having been removed to Colombia. The court finds this to be an aggravating factor that outweighs the defendant's reasons in arguing good cause for a favorable exercise of discretion. The motion is denied.” (Citation omitted.) This appeal followed.

On appeal, the defendant contends that the trial court “de facto” resolved the issue of jurisdiction in his favor, and that such a conclusion was proper in light of the legislative history of the 1997 amendment to § 54–1j. The defendant claims that this legislative history resolves an ambiguity created by textual silence on the effect of filing a motion after the three year period prescribed in § 54–1j (c). The defendant further contends that the trial court improperly failed to determine that there were compelling circumstances that warranted vacating his guilty plea. In particular, the defendant contends that the trial court should not have focused on his illegal entry, for which the defendant will have to answer in the federal court proceedings, but instead should have focused on facts that demonstrate that he was deprived of effective assistance of counsel in his criminal trial. Alternatively, citing State v. Reid, 277 Conn. 764, 778, 894 A.2d 963 (2006), the defendant asks us to exercise our supervisory authority to treat his appeal as though he had filed a request for permission to file an untimely appeal from his judgment of conviction.

In response, the state contends that the trial court did not resolve the issue of jurisdiction, but instead improperly presumed that it had jurisdiction under § 54–1j to resolve the case on the ground that it would not exercise discretion to grant the motion if it had such jurisdiction. The state contends that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to consider the defendant's motion under settled jurisprudence and the plain text of the statute, and there is no textual ambiguity that permits resort to legislative history. Moreover, the state contends that the legislative history on which the defendant relies is itself ambiguous, in that the colloquy may have been referring to the court's common-law jurisdiction to vacate certain judgments under appellate case law that since has been overruled. Alternatively, the state contends that, even if the trial court has jurisdiction over a motion filed outside the three year period prescribed under § 54–1j (c), the court properly determined that the facts of the present case did not warrant an exercise of discretion in the defendant's favor.

We conclude that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the defendant's motion to vacate. We further conclude that the present case does not implicate the type of rare circumstances that warranted the exerciseof our supervisory authority in State v. Reid, supra, 277 Conn. at 778, 894 A.2d 963.

“Questions regarding subject matter jurisdiction are purely legal in nature and subject to plenary review.” State v. Das, supra, 291 Conn. at 361, 968 A.2d 367. In considering the particular question raised in the present case, we are guided by well settled principles. “The Superior Court is a constitutional court of general jurisdiction. In the absence of statutory or constitutional provisions, the limits of its jurisdiction are delineated by the common law.... It is well established that under the common law a trial court has the discretionary power to modify or vacate a criminal judgment before the sentence has been executed.... This is so because the court loses jurisdiction over the case when the defendant is committed to the custody of the commissioner of correction and begins serving the sentence.... State v. Luzietti, 230 Conn. 427, 431–32, 646 A.2d 85 (1994)....

“[In other words] the jurisdiction of the sentencing court terminates once a defendant's sentence has begun, and, therefore, that court may no longer take any action affecting a defendant's sentence unless it expressly has been authorized to act. Cobham v. Commissioner of Correction, 258 Conn. 30, 37, 779 A.2d 80 (2001); accord State v. Reid [supra, 277 Conn. at 775, 894 A.2d 963]; see also State v. Walzer, 208 Conn. 420, 424–25, 545 A.2d 559 (1988). This principle is memorialized in Practice Book § 39–26, which provides: A defendant may withdraw his...