State v. Ward

341 Conn. 142

266 A.3d 807

STATE of Connecticut

v.Jeffrey K. WARD

SC 20427

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 25, 2021

Officially released October 21, 2021^*

Temmy Ann Miller, for the appellant (defendant).

Sarah Hanna, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, was Sharmese L. Walcott, state's attorney, for the appellee (state).

Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Kahn, Ecker and Keller, Js.

Opinion

D'AURIA, J.

The defendant, Jeffrey K. Ward, appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court affirming the trial court's dismissal of his motion to correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner. Specifically, he claims that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to correct his sentence because he failed to allege a colorable claim within the scope of Practice Book § 43-22.¹ We agree and, accordingly, reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this certified appeal. Pursuant to a plea agreement, the defendant pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-55 (a) (1) and assault in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a) (1). After canvassing the defendant, the trial court, Alexander, J ., accepted the defendant's guilty plea. Following a hearing, and consistent with the plea agreement, the trial court sentenced the defendant to a total effective term of twenty-five years of incarceration. The defendant did not appeal from his conviction.

Approximately four years after sentencing, the defendant filed a motion to correct, accompanied by a memorandum of law and attached documents. The defendant claimed that the sentencing court had imposed his sentence in an illegal manner on the grounds that (1) he was incompetent at the time of sentencing and (2) the sentencing court had, before imposing sentence, failed to order, sua sponte, a competency evaluation and hearing pursuant to General Statutes § 54-56d.

According to the defendant's memorandum of law, at his sentencing hearing, both the prosecutor and defense counsel discussed his psychiatric background, including his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Although he conceded that, at the sentencing hearing, his attorney told the court that his symptoms had improved to the point that he was then "calm, rational, and understood and appreciated the seriousness of [the] situation," the defendant argued that, since the date of sentencing, substantial additional evidence had become available regarding his mental illness and psychiatric treatment prior to sentencing. This new information, he argued, demonstrated that he was not competent at his sentencing despite his counsel's reassurances to the contrary.

The defendant attached to his motion and supporting memorandum of law an extensive set of records and materials, including the transcript from the sentencing hearing, the police report regarding the underlying incident at issue, a psychiatric report, and clinical records from the Department of Correction (department). The record contains no evidence that the police report, psychiatric report, or clinical records had been provided to the sentencing judge, and, thus, the Appellate Court concluded that the sentencing judge "could not have relied on those documents to consider ordering" an evaluation and a hearing. State v. Ward , 193 Conn. App. 794, 812 n.10, 220 A.3d 68 (2019). Specifically, in his motion to correct, the defendant relied on the police report regarding the underlying crime, which indicated that, during an interview with the police, the defendant inserted a pencil approximately five to six inches into his right nostril and then attempted to stab himself in the neck with the pencil, causing a minor laceration. Additionally, he relied on a psychiatric report dated approximately three and one-half months before sentencing, which stated that, even with continued treatment, the defendant had a significant risk of continuing to suffer symptoms of his schizophrenia.

Clinical records of the department dated before the defendant entered his guilty plea reported that he had missed several doses of his prescribed antipsychotic medication. These records also showed that, before sentencing, the defendant told department staff three different versions of the details of his plea deal: (1) he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter in the first degree and assault in the first degree in exchange for a total effective sentence of twenty-five years of incarceration; (2) he agreed to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a twenty year sentence; and (3) he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a twenty year sentence. The clinical records further showed that, after his guilty plea but before his sentencing, the defendant missed doses of his prescribed antipsychotic medication intermittently and at times reported experiencing auditory hallucinations. According to the clinical records, approximately one month after his sentencing, the defendant told department staff that he was confused about his sentence, stating that he was serving a thirty year sentence for manslaughter.

After oral argument on the defendant's motion to correct, the trial court reserved decision regarding its jurisdiction and heard the parties on the merits of the motion to correct. The court later issued a memorandum of decision dismissing the motion to correct for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that the motion challenged the defendant's competency at the time he pleaded guilty pursuant to the plea agreement and, thus, constituted a collateral attack on his conviction, not his sentence.

The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming that the trial court incorrectly had concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over his motion to correct.² The Appellate Court acknowledged that the trial court's analysis was flawed because it was clear from the pleadings that the defendant was challenging the sentencing proceedings and the legality of the manner in which his sentence was imposed. Id., at 806, 220 A.3d 68. Nevertheless, after examining the pleadings and documents attached to the defendant's motion to correct, the Appellate Court concluded that the trial court properly dismissed the motion for lack of jurisdiction because the defendant failed to raise "a colorable claim" that he was incompetent at the time of his sentencing, or that the sentencing judge had information prior to sentencing that required her to order a competency evaluation and hearing. Id., at 812–13 and n.10, 220 A.3d 68. The Appellate Court reasoned that nothing in the attached transcripts, police report, psychiatric report, or psychiatric records supported the conclusion that the defendant was incompetent at the time of sentencing. See id., at 812–13, 220 A.3d 68.

Judge Sheldon issued a concurring and dissenting opinion. In his view, the defendant had pleaded sufficient facts to raise a colorable claim that he was incompetent at the time of his sentencing but not to raise a colorable claim that Judge Alexander should have sua sponte ordered a competency evaluation and hearing before sentencing. Id., at 820, 220 A.3d 68 (Sheldon, J ., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Judge Sheldon contended that the majority improperly required the defendant to show that he was incompetent at the time of sentencing, thereby requiring him to prove that he would succeed on the merits. Id., at 821–22, 220 A.3d 68 (Sheldon, J ., concurring in part and dissenting in part). In Judge Sheldon's view, the colorability standard required the defendant "to present sufficient facts to establish that his claim of incompetence is a possibility, rather than a certainty ... and is superficially well founded but may ultimately be deemed invalid." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 822 n.3, 220 A.3d 68 (Sheldon, J ., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Applying this standard, Judge Sheldon concluded that the "well documented facts presented to the trial court in the motion to correct concerning the defendant's failure to take his prescribed antipsychotic medication in the weeks before he was sentenced, his contemporaneous experiencing of auditory hallucinations and his confusion, before and after he was sentenced, about the terms of his plea bargain and the length of his sentence, both as agreed to and as imposed, raise at least a genuine possibility that when he was sentenced he was incompetent because he lacked a rational and factual under-standing of the proceedings against him due to his ongoing mental illness." Id., at 821, 220 A.3d 68 (Sheldon, J ., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Thus, Judge Sheldon argued that the case should be remanded to the trial court for a hearing on the merits of the defendant's motion. See id., at 823, 220 A.3d 68 (Sheldon, J ., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

The defendant then petitioned for certification to appeal to this court on whether he had raised colorable claims that his sentence was imposed in an illegal manner because (1) the sentencing judge was obligated to order a competency examination but failed to do so, and (2) he was incompetent at the time he was sentenced. We granted certification, limited to the issue of whether "the Appellate Court correctly determine[d] that the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence on the ground that the motion, on its face, did not raise a colorable claim that the defendant was incompetent at the time of his sentencing ...."³ State v. Ward , 334 Conn. 911, 221 A.3d 448 (2020).

Whether the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction over the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence is a question of law, and our review is plenary. See, e.g., State v. McCleese , 333 Conn. 378, 386, 215 A.3d 1154 (201...