Budziszewski v. Connecticut Judicial Branch

Citations

• 199 Conn. App. 518

Syllabus

The petitioner, a Polish national, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his criminal trial counsel, K, had provided ineffective assistance by failing to advise him adequately as to the immigration consequences of his plea of guilty to a certain offense that subjected him to deportation. After the petitioner entered the guilty plea, federal authorities detained him and initiated deportation proceedings against him. The petitioner claimed that, if he had been properly advised by K as to the immigration consequences of entering a guilty plea, he would not have accepted the plea offer. The habeas court rendered judgment denying the habeas petition and granted the petition for certification to appeal, and the petitioner appealed to this court. Held that the habeas court properly concluded that the petitioner was not prejudiced by the advice of his attorney, K, regarding the immigration consequences of pleading guilty: although the petitioner highlighted the actions that he took subsequent to accepting the plea offer, including the motions that he had filed contesting his conviction following his guilty plea and the amount of money he spent in avoiding deportation, the petitioner's post hoc asser- tions on appeal that he would not have pleaded guilty but for K's advice were insufficient to establish prejudice in light of the absence of substan- tial, contemporaneous evidence to support such assertions, the credibil- ity determinations made by the habeas court regarding the concerns of the petitioner that were contemporaneous to his acceptance of the offer support the conclusion that the court credited K's testimony that the length of incarceration, not deportation, was the petitioner's main con- cern, and that the petitioner accepted the plea that would ensure that he would spend less than one year in jail, and the court did not credit the petitioner's testimony that he would not have taken the plea deal had he known that he would be deported. Argued March 12—off