Dearing v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 230 Conn. App. 145

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of sexual assault in the first degree and risk of injury to a child, appealed, on the granting of certification, from the judgment of the habeas court denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petitioner claimed that the court improperly failed to conclude that he received ineffective assistance from his criminal trial counsel, appel- late counsel, and prior habeas counsel. Held: The habeas court properly concluded that the petitioner's criminal trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to hire, consult with, or present the testimony of a child abuse expert, as the petitioner failed to establish that his counsel's performance fell outside the wide range of reasonable professional assistance, and, even assuming that it was profes- sionally unreasonable for his counsel not to have engaged his own child abuse expert and that this failure amounted to deficient performance under the facts of this case, the petitioner failed to establish that he was prejudiced by his counsel's performance. The habeas court properly concluded that the petitioner's criminal trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to obtain the victim's confidential medical records or to object to or seek to have stricken certain testimony from the state's child forensic interview expert, the petitioner having failed to demonstrate that his counsel's performance was deficient. The habeas court properly determined that the petitioner's appellate counsel did not provide ineffective assistance by not raising as an appellate issue in the petitioner's direct appeal that the trial court improperly denied the petitioner's request for the disclosure of the victim's medical and psychologi- cal records on the ground that they contained nothing exculpatory, the petitioner having failed to satisfy his burden of demonstrating deficient performance. Because this court concluded that the habeas court correctly determined that t