AC45675 - Raynor v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court improperly determined that he failed to establish that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel during his criminal trial. Specifically, the petitioner claims that the habeas court erroneously determined that his trial counsel did not render ineffective assistance (1) by failing to object to uncharged misconduct evidence, and (2) by failing to limit the scope of cell site location information (CSLI) evidence by either requesting a Porter hearing or presenting a witness to challenge the state’s CSLI expert. We affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

AC46491 - Bennett v. Commissioner of Correction (“The self-represented petitioner, Erick Bennett, appeals, following the denial of his petition for certification to appeal, from the judgment of the habeas court denying his motion to open and/or vacate the judgment denying his third amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus (motion to open). Although the petitioner challenges the merits of the habeas court’s denial of his motion to open, he has failed to brief the threshold issue of whether the habeas court abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal. Accordingly, we dismiss the petitioner’s appeal.”)

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AC45712 - Soyini v. Commissioner of Correction (“In his petition, he asserted that his underlying conviction is invalid because his constitutional rights not to be subjected to an unreasonable warrantless search of his cell phone, to due process, and to the effective assistance of trial and appellate counsel were violated. On appeal, the petitioner claims that the court improperly concluded that his right to the effective assistance of trial counsel was not violated on the basis of counsel’s failure to move to suppress certain evidence that the police extracted from the petitioner’s cell phone prior to obtaining a valid search warrant and the ‘fruits’ of the purportedly unconstitutional search. We disagree and affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC45482 - Stephenson v. Commissioner of Correction ("After the granting of certification to appeal, the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, appeals from the judgment of the habeas court granting the petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by the petitioner, Joseph Stephenson. The habeas court found that the petitioner's criminal trial counsel, James Lamontagne, had provided ineffective assistance by failing to properly advise the petitioner about the mandatory deportation consequence of his guilty pleas to two charges of larceny in the sixth degree. On appeal, the respondent claims that the habeas court's determination that Lamontagne had performed deficiently was improper because the court (1) did not determine what advice Lamontagne actually provided, as required by Budziszewski v. Commissioner of Correction, 322 Conn. 504, 142 A.3d 243 (2016), (2) failed to hold the petitioner to his burden to rebut the presumption that Lamontagne's advice fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance, and (3) applied a higher standard than what the law requires when it based its finding of deficient performance on Lamontagne's failure to advise the petitioner that his pleas would "`automatically subject him to mandatory deportation.'" (Emphasis omitted.) We affirm the judgment of the habeas court.")

• AC45482 Concurrence- Stephenson v. Commissioner of Correction

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AC45756 - Brown v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court (1) abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal, and (2) improperly concluded that his trial counsel’s failure to call an eyewitness identification expert at the petitioner’s criminal trial did not constitute constitutionally deficient performance that prejudiced the petitioner. We agree with the petitioner that the habeas court abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal. We agree, however, with the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, that the petitioner failed to establish that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC45795 - Martinez v. Commissioner of Correction (Ineffective assistance of counsel; "On appeal, the petitioner claims that his trial counsel, Attorney TaShun Bowden-Lewis, performed deficiently by failing to offer her opinion as to whether the petitioner should have taken a pretrial plea offer from the state and that he was prejudiced by trial counsel’s deficient performance. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC45841 - Godfrey-Hill v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the court improperly concluded that (1) his trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to investigate and to call a certain witness to testify during the petitioner’s criminal trial and (2) he was not prejudiced by counsel’s alleged deficiencies. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

AC45321 - Madera v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the court improperly concluded that he failed to sustain his burden of establishing that he was prejudiced by counsel’s alleged deficient performance. We agree with the habeas court’s conclusion and, accordingly, affirm its judgment.”)

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AC45442 - Williams v. Commisioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court (1) abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal, (2) improperly concluded that certain undisclosed impeachment evidence was not material under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215 (1963), and (3) improperly concluded that the petitioner failed to prove that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. We agree with the petitioner’s first two claims, and, accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC44188 - Pierce v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner argues that the court abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal because the court improperly dismissed the first count of his third amended petition in 2019 without first providing him with notice and an opportunity to be heard.3 We agree with the petitioner that the court abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal. Furthermore, in light of our Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v. Commissioner of Correction, 345 Conn. 1, 282 A.3d 959 (2022), and in Brown’s companion case, Boria v. Commissioner of Correction, 345 Conn. 39, 282 A.3d 433 (2022), which were decided in 2022, after the habeas court’s 2019 dismissal of the first count of the petitioner’s third amended petition, we agree that the habeas court committed error in dismissing that count pursuant to § 23- 29 without first providing him with prior notice of its intention to dismiss and an opportunity to submit a brief or a written response addressing the proposed basis for dismissal. Accordingly, we reverse in part the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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SC20786 - Maia v. Commissioner of Correction (Ineffective assistance; plea bargaining; “In this certified appeal, we consider whether trial counsel for the petitioner, Derek Maia, rendered ineffective assistance when he failed to recommend that the petitioner accept the court’s pretrial plea offer of a forty-five year sentence of incarceration, considering that the court sentenced him to sixty years after trial. We disagree with the habeas court’s determination that counsel’s lack of a specific recommendation amounted to deficient performance pursuant to Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984). As a result, we reverse the habeas court’s judgment and remand the case to that court with direction to deny the petitioner’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.”)

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SC20621- Banks v. Commissioner of Correction ("We conclude that plain error and Golding review is available to challenge the habeas court’s handling of the habeas proceeding itself, despite its denial of a petition for certification to appeal, if the appellant can demonstrate that the unpreserved claims involve issues that ‘are debatable among jurists of reason; that a court could resolve [them in a different manner]; or that [they] are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.’ (Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.) Simms v. Warden, 230 Conn. 608, 616, 646 A.2d 126 (1994) (Simms II). We therefore reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court dismissing the appeal filed by the petitioner, Harold T. Banks, Jr., and remand the case to that court for consideration of the petitioner’s claims under the Simms II criteria.")

• Dissent

SC20622 - Bosque v. Commissioner of Correction (“In Banks v. Commissioner of Correction, 347 Conn. 335, 350–77, A.3d (2023), also released today, we held that unpreserved claims challenging the habeas court’s handling of the habeas proceeding itself are reviewable under the plain error doctrine and Golding, despite the failure to include those claims in the petition for certification to appeal, if the appellant can demonstrate that the claims are nonfrivolous because they involve issues that ‘are debatable among jurists of reason; that a court could resolve [them in a different manner]; or that [they] are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.’ (Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.) Simms v. Warden, 230 Conn. 608, 616, 646 A.2d 126 (1994). Because the Appellate Court dismissed the petitioner’s uncertified appeal without first considering whether his unpreserved claims are nonfrivolous under the Simms criteria, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court and remand for consideration of that issue consistent with the principles set forth in Banks.”)

• Dissent

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AC45232 - Crocker v. Commissioner of Correction (“The petitioner claims on appeal that the court improperly rejected his claims that counsel in two previous habeas actions provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to raise claims that his criminal trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by not conducting a proper investigation to identify exculpatory witnesses and/or by failing to call exculpatory witnesses to testify at his criminal trial. We disagree. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC45412 - Morales v. Commissioner of Correction (Theory of self-defense; claim of failure to properly preserve claim for appellate review; “On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court improperly concluded that he failed to establish that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel during his criminal trial. We disagree, and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC44979 - Carter v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court incorrectly concluded that his trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to investigate evidence containing biological material found at the crime scene and to submit that evidence for DNA analysis. We affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

AC44160 - Sease v. Commissioner of Correction (“Having made no determination in Sease I as to whether the petitioner ultimately prevailed on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing and having left undecided the petitioner’s additional appellate claims, we must now resolve, after remand, the following claims of the petitioner. The petitioner claims that the habeas court improperly (1) determined on remand that his trial counsel’s failure to investigate his mental health background prior to sentencing and his failure to focus further on that background during sentencing arguments did not fall below the exercise of reasonable professional judgment under the first prong of Strickland, (2) rejected his claim that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to challenge uncharged misconduct testimony by a state’s witness, and (3) rejected his claim that the state violated his right to due process by the knowing presentation of false testimony. The habeas court denied the petitioner’s petition for certification to appeal, and he claims that the court abused its discretion in so deciding. We agree with only the petitioner’s claim that the court improperly determined that his trial counsel had not rendered constitutionally deficient performance at sentencing, and we disagree with the petitioner’s other claims. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the habeas court only with respect to the petitioner’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing, vacate the petitioner’s sentences, and order a new sentencing hearing.”)

AC44892 - Reese v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner raises two substantive claims: (1) Judge Newson improperly dismissed one count of his amended petition on the basis of res judicata and (2) Judge Chaplin improperly denied his motion to sequester one of the respondent’s witnesses, Attorney C. Robert Satti, who prosecuted the petitioner in his underlying criminal trial and prosecuted one of the petitioner’s witnesses at the habeas trial for committing perjury during the petitioner’s criminal trial. The respondent argues that the petitioner’s two claims are unreviewable because he did not identify them in his petition for certification. In response, the petitioner, after recognizing that decisions of this court require that any claims on appeal be presented first in a petition for certification, argues that ‘‘it can hardly be gainsaid that the claims of error [the petitioner] has enumerated in this appeal were not raised before, and decided by, the habeas court.’’ He concludes by arguing that, ‘‘although the petition for certification to appeal that was filed in this case is broadly worded, the claims that [the petitioner] has pursued on appeal clearly fall within its penumbra. The habeas court’s denial of the petition for certification in its entirety was a discretionary act, subject to review by this court. Further, and more importantly, the claims were fully litigated below, both by way of written motions and at oral argument. Consequently, there can be no contention that it would be an ‘ambuscade’ of the habeas court for this court to assess the claims on their merits.’’ We are not persuaded by the petitioner’s arguments.”)

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AC44745 - Valentine v. Commissioner of Correction (Habeas corpus; "In 1998, a jury found the petitioner, Daryl Valentine, guilty of two counts of murder and other offenses stemming from a 1991 altercation outside a diner in New Haven during which three men were shot, two of them fatally. The petitioner's conviction was affirmed on direct appeal and, thereafter, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied. He subsequently filed the present habeas action, which was dismissed in part and denied in part. Following the denial of his petition for certification to appeal, the petitioner appeals from the judgment of the habeas court, claiming that the court (1) abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal, (2) improperly concluded, first, that the petitioner's due process rights were not violated by improprieties of the trial prosecutor during closing argument and, relatedly, that he was not deprived of his right to the effective assistance of counsel by virtue of the failure of appellate counsel and first habeas counsel to raise that due process claim on direct appeal and in the first habeas petition, respectively, and (3) improperly denied his motion to open the evidence. We agree with the petitioner that the habeas court abused its discretion in denying the petition for certification to appeal. We nevertheless agree with the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, that the petitioner has neither established that prosecutorial improprieties deprived him of his right to a fair trial nor has he demonstrated that appellate counsel and first habeas counsel were ineffective in failing to raise that claim. We also conclude that the denial of the petitioner's motion to open the evidence was not an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the habeas court.")

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AC44723 - Young v. Commissioner of Correction (Due process under Brady v. Maryland; “On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court improperly concluded that his due process rights were not violated as a result of (1) the state’s failure to disclose to the defense its agreement with a witness, Maria Zambrano, for her testimony in the petitioner’s criminal trial, and (2) the state’s knowing presentation of false and misleading testimony regarding this agreement. We disagree with the petitioner’s claims, and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC44886, AC44957 - Gregory v. Commissioner of Correction (“In these certified appeals, the petitioner, Marcus Gregory, and the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, appeal from the judgment of the habeas court granting in part and denying in part the petitioner’s amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In Docket No. AC 44886, the respondent claims that the court improperly rendered summary judgment for the petitioner on the first count of his petition alleging that his kidnapping conviction violated the state and federal constitutions because the trial court failed to instruct the jury pursuant to State v. Salamon, 287 Conn. 509, 949 A.2d 1092 (2008), that, to find him guilty of kidnapping, the jury was required to find that he restrained the victims to a greater extent than necessary to complete other crimes. In Docket No. AC 44957, the petitioner claims that the habeas court improperly rendered summary judgment for the respondent on the second count of his petition alleging that his nolo contendere pleas in two separate cases to kidnapping and other offenses were not made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily because Salamon was decided more than ten years after he entered his pleas. We agree with the respondent’s claim but disagree with the petitioner’s claim. Accordingly, we reverse in part the judgment of the court.”)

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AC41663 - Leffingwell v. Commissioner of Correction (Amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus; “In that petition, he claimed, inter alia, that his federal and state constitutional rights were violated as a result of legislative changes pertaining to the administration and application of risk reduction earned credits (RREC). On appeal, the petitioner claims that the court improperly dismissed his petition without first providing him with notice and an opportunity to be heard. In accordance with our Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v. Commissioner of Correction, 345 Conn. 1, 282 A.3d 959 (2022), and Boria v. Commissioner of Correction, 345 Conn. 39, 282 A.3d 433 (2022), we conclude that the habeas court should not have dismissed the habeas petition pursuant to § 23-29 without first providing the petitioner with notice and an opportunity to submit a brief or other written response addressing the proposed basis for dismissal. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the habeas court and remand for further proceedings in accordance with this decision.”)

AC41635 - Brewer v. Commissioner of Correction (Amended petition; claim that federal and state constitutional rights were violated as a result of legislative changes; “On appeal, the petitioner claims that the court improperly dismissed his petition without first providing him with notice and an opportunity to be heard. In accordance with our Supreme Court’s decisions in Brown v. Commissioner of Correction, 345 Conn. 1, 282 A.3d 959 (2022), and Boria v. Commissioner of Correction, 345 Conn. 39, 282 A.3d 433 (2022), we conclude that the habeas court should not have dismissed the habeas petition pursuant to § 23-29 without first providing the petitioner with notice and an opportunity to submit a brief or other written response addressing the proposed basis for dismissal. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the habeas court and remand for further proceedings in accordance with this decision.”)

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AC42876 - Stanley v. Commissioner of Correction (Habeas corpus; "The self-represented petitioner, Steven Keith Stanley, appeals, following the denial of his petition for certification to appeal, from the judgment of the habeas court denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Although the petitioner challenges the merits of the habeas court's denial of his petition, he has failed to brief the threshold issue of whether the habeas court abused its discretion in denying his petition for certification to appeal. Accordingly, we dismiss the petitioner's appeal.")

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AC45132 - Foster v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court incorrectly concluded that his trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance by failing (1) to advise the petitioner to reject the plea offer because it was effectively a life sentence, (2) to advise the petitioner to reject the plea offer because he would lose his right to appeal the trial court’s determination that the petitioner was competent to stand trial, and (3) to preserve the petitioner’s right to appeal from the trial court’s determination that the petitioner was competent to stand trial. We affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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AC45062 - Ross v. Commissioner of Correction (“On appeal, the petitioner claims that the habeas court improperly (1) rejected his actual innocence claim, (2) concluded that he failed to establish that standby counsel provided ineffective assistance, and (3) dismissed count two of the habeas petition. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the habeas court.”)

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