Fair v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 205 Conn. App. 282

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of murder and criminal possession of a firearm, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. Following an evidentiary hear- ing, the habeas court denied the petition, concluding that the petitioner had failed to demonstrate that his trial counsel had acted deficiently by failing to present certain expert testimony or to impeach a testifying witness, M, regarding M's alleged motivation to testify untruthfully, and that any failure on behalf of the petitioner's trial counsel to impeach M with respect to M's conflicting statements regarding the identification of the shooter did not prejudice the petitioner. Thereafter, the habeas court denied the petition for certification to appeal, and the petitioner appealed to this court. Held that the habeas court did not abuse its discretion in denying the petition for certification to appeal, the peti- tioner having failed to demonstrate that the issues raised in his petition were debatable among jurists of reason, that the court could have resolved the issues in a different manner or that the questions were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further; the petitioner failed to demonstrate that he was prejudiced by the alleged deficient performance of his trial counsel, as the petitioner failed to demonstrate that the outcome of his trial would have been different if his trial counsel had presented evidence about the Jamaican etymology of a term that was allegedly used by the shooter when he fired his weapon, as there was no evidence that the term could be used only by a person of Jamaican descent and, in light of the evidence presented at trial that the shooter was wearing a Jamaican hat and fake dreadlocks, the jury could have inferred that the petitioner used the term in an effort to conceal his identity; moreover, the petitioner failed to present any credible evidence in support of his theory that M agreed to cooperate with the