Abdus-Sabur v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 233 Conn. App. 435

Syllabus

The respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, appealed, on the granting of certification, from the habeas court's judgment granting in part the peti- tioner's habeas corpus petition, in which the petitioner claimed, inter alia, that he was actually innocent of the murder of the victim. The respondent contended that the court improperly concluded that M, the petitioner's trial counsel, had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to subpoena the petitioner's brother, I, and to present I's testimony that he had committed the murder. Held: The habeas court improperly granted in part the habeas petition, as the petitioner failed to overcome the strong presumption that M's informed, strategic decision not to subpoena I or to present I's testimony was reason- able trial strategy, which the court improperly concluded amounted to defi- cient performance. At the time of trial, it was reasonable for M to have concluded that I had been uncooperative and that his testimony would be unpredictable in light of I's steadfast, pretrial reluctance to meet with and to admit to M's investiga- tors his responsibility for the crime, as well as I's failure to come forward at the petitioner's criminal trial and his avoidance in speaking about his role in the victim's murder until he was subpoenaed to testify at the habeas trial nine years later. The habeas court also failed to consider, from M's point of view, the risk that I's testimony could corroborate that of the state's witnesses identifying the petitioner as the gunman or, if confronted with videos I had made in which he confessed to the crime, that I could testify that the videos were false and had been made at the petitioner's direction, which might have undermined the central theory of the defense case, which was that the state's witnesses were not credible. Argued February 3—officially released July 1, 2025