Leconte v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 207 Conn. App. 306

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of several crimes in connection with three armed robberies in Norwalk, Greenwich and Stamford, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, that his trial counsel ren- dered ineffective assistance by failing to investigate adequately and to present evidence that he suffered from significant mental disease that rendered involuntary an inculpatory statement regarding his involve- ment in the Norwalk and Greenwich robberies that he had made to a cellmate while he was incarcerated on charges related to the Stamford robbery. The petitioner asserted that evidence of his mental health issues would have led the trial court to grant his motion to suppress that statement and was necessary, after the statement was admitted into evidence, to effectively cross-examine and to discredit the state's wit- nesses regarding that statement. The habeas court determined both that there was no evidence that the petitioner's statement to the cellmate was not made knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily, and that the petitioner failed to present evidence that showed how his mental health affected the voluntariness of that statement. The court further deter- mined that, during the pendency of the petitioner's criminal case, his mental health records had been reviewed by a physician who was board certified in forensic psychiatry and that another mental health profes- sional had prepared a report that concluded that the petitioner was malingering. The court thus concluded that the petitioner failed to prove that his trial counsel performed deficiently or that he was prejudiced by his counsel's alleged failure to investigate or to present evidence about the petitioner's mental illnesses. The court therefore denied the habeas petition, and the petitioner, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held: 1. The habeas court properly concluded that the petitioner failed to demon- strate that he suffered constitutionally ineffective as