Coney v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 215 Conn. App. 99

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of the crimes of murder and criminal possession of a pistol or revolver, filed a fourth petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The habeas court, upon the request of the respondent Commissioner of Correction, issued an order to show cause why the petition should not be dismissed as untimely given that it had been filed beyond the time limit for successive petitions set forth in the applicable statute (§ 52-470 (d)). The court held an evidentiary hearing, during which the petitioner testified that he had filed a timely third habeas petition but withdrew it prior to trial because his prior habeas counsel had advised him that withdrawing the petition and refiling it would be in the petitioner's best interest because counsel had lost contact with a key witness. The petitioner further testified that counsel did not discuss § 52-470 (d) or its effect on the petitioner's ability to file another petition challenging his conviction nor did he take any other action to address the witness' unavailability and that, if the petitioner had known that withdrawing the petition and refiling would result in an untimely petition, he would not have done so. The habeas court dismissed the fourth habeas petition as untimely, concluding that the petitioner failed to demonstrate good cause for the delay in filing the petition. Thereafter, the petitioner, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held that the habeas court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the petitioner failed to demonstrate good cause for the delay in filing his fourth habeas petition: contrary to the petitioner's claim that his prior habeas counsel's deficient advice to withdraw his third habeas petition constituted good cause, there were no external factors outside of the petitioner's control that caused or contributed to the withdrawal of that petition and the delay in filing the fourth habeas petition, and the petitioner and his counsel together exclus