Angel C. v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 226 Conn. App. 837

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had previously been convicted of sexual assault and risk of injury to a child in connection with the sexual abuse of his stepdaughter, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his criminal trial counsel, J, had provided ineffective assistance by failing to contact his two minor children to investigate whether they could support the petitioner's theory of consent and that she failed to call his children as witnesses at the criminal trial. The petitioner's theory of defense during his criminal trial was that he had a consensual relationship with his stepdaughter and that the sexual activity occurred after she was sixteen years old. During the habeas trial, the petitioner attempted to offer testimony from his now adult children to support his claim of deficient performance. The respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, objected to the children's testimony on the ground of relevance, and the habeas court sustained the objection. The habeas court thereafter denied the petition and, on the granting of certification, the petitioner appealed to this court. Held: 1. The habeas court did not abuse its discretion in precluding the petitioner's children from testifying at the habeas trial: the petitioner's counsel failed to articulate for the habeas court any substantive facts that the children would be expected to discuss during their testimony, and the petitioner, for the first time on appeal, argued that his children would ''presumably'' have testified as to certain topics, without articulating the specific excul- patory information each child would have been able to testify to at the habeas trial; moreover, there was no merit to the petitioner's claim that the habeas court should have looked to the broader record when considering the relevance of the children's testimony, specifically, that the testimony of the petitioner's former wife and the children's mother, who testified at the habeas trial just before the petitioner's counsel attempted to pr