Bowens v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 333 Conn. 502

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of murder, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, that he was actually innocent of the crime, the eyewitness identification procedures employed in connection with his criminal case violated his due process rights under the federal consti- tution, his first habeas counsel provided ineffective assistance of coun- sel, and his sentence for a crime he committed when he was a juvenile, without any consideration of the mitigating effects of his youth, violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. The murder occurred as the victim and another person, P, were sitting in the victim's parked car at a well illuminated intersection at around 11 p.m. P saw the shooter approach the car, lean into the driver's side window, and shoot the victim. The next day at the police station, P identified the petitioner's photograph from a photographic array, and the petitioner was arrested three days later. Two other witnesses, W and D, testified at the petitioner's criminal trial, corroborating P's description of the events, but they were unable to identify the petitioner as the shooter. D identified the petitioner in court as the man she had seen running on an adjacent street shortly after the shooting, entering the driveway of a house that the petitioner admitted staying at frequently at the time of the murder, and as a man she previously had seen in her neighborhood. In support of the alibi defense the petitioner presented at his criminal trial, he offered the testimony of three witnesses who claimed that he was with them at a party at C's home at the time of the shooting. H, an investigator retained by the petitioner's trial counsel, gave trial counsel a report summarizing an interview with C in which C indicated that the petitioner had been at the party. Trial counsel thereafter spoke with C twice during the petitioner's criminal trial but did not call her as a witness. The state nevertheless called C