Gonzalez v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 205 Conn. App. 511

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of several crimes in connection with the shooting death of the victim, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance for having followed a strategy that was based on an inaccurate statement of the law. The petitioner specifically asserted that his right to due process was violated because the statutory (§§ 53a-8 and 53a-55a) scheme underlying his conviction of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm as an accessory does not require the state to prove, as an essential element of accessorial liability, that he intended the princi- pal's use of a firearm. The habeas court concluded that the petitioner failed to show how §§ 53a-8 and 53a-55a violated due process by shifting to the defense the burden of proving an essential element of accessorial liability, and, thus, that the petitioner had failed to prove that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance. The court denied the petitioner's habeas petition, and, on the granting of certification, he appealed to this court. On appeal, the respondent Commissioner of Correction contended that the petitioner's claim was procedurally barred pursuant to Teague v. Lane (489 U.S. 288), which precludes a court on collateral review from declaring a new constitutional rule after a conviction has become final. Held that the habeas court properly denied the petitioner's habeas peti- tion, as state and federal precedent at the time his conviction became final made clear that no constitutional rule existed then that required the state to prove, as an essential element of accessorial liability for manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm, that the accessory intended the principal's use of the firearm; moreover, the rule the peti- tioner sought to establish was not, as he claimed, an application of existing constitutional principles, as the United States Supreme Court in Patterson v. New York (432 U.S. 197) had held prior to