Donald v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 216 Conn. App. 63

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of several crimes in connection with his involvement in an armed robbery and shooting, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to adequately investigate his troubled background and upbringing and to present that information as mitigation evidence at the sentencing proceeding. The petitioner, who was nineteen years old at the time of the robbery, was sentenced to seventy-five years of imprisonment. He thereafter filed an application for sentence review with the Sentence Review Division of the Superior Court. Before the start of the habeas trial, the sentence review division granted the petitioner's application for a sentence reduction and concluded that the seventy- five year sentence for nonhomicidal offenses was disproportionate and should be reduced to a term of forty-five years. The petitioner thereafter amended his habeas petition to allege that, had the mitigation evidence been presented to the sentence review division, a reasonable probability existed that he would have received a greater sentence reduction than the thirty years that was ordered. The petitioner testified at the habeas trial that he had been sexually abused as a child, had begun using illegal drugs at age eleven and was consuming drugs and alcohol regularly by age twelve. He testified that he had had little to no relationship with his father, who was a drug user, and had been constantly exposed to violence throughout his youth, during which he became a member of a street gang and witnessed a friend being shot in the head. The petitioner further stated that he had been diagnosed with behavioral and mental health problems during his childhood and had experienced periods of homelessness when he was not institutionalized in group homes and mental health facilities for lengthy periods of time. D, a social worker, who had reviewed the petitioner's records from those facilities, con-