Moore v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 338 Conn. 330

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of robbery in the first degree and the commission of a class B felony with a firearm, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his trial counsel, O, had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to adequately advise him during pretrial negotiations 8 The commission puts undue legal weight on the fact that the resolution was put on the city council's consent calendar and was adopted without modification or change. The commission has not identified any basis to conclude that a member of the city council could not have asked to discuss or amend the resolution had he or she wanted to do so. The record reflects that the resolution was available for public discussion and public view, and that, by being placed on the consent calendar, ''unless a city-elected official asked for it to be removed from the consent calendar, it would just get approved without discussion . . . .'' (Emphasis added.) Indeed, the majority leader of the city council testified that the resolution ''is always subject to full discussion, full public comment, full information gathering, people vot[ing] in favor of it, people deciding to vote against it, amending it . . . .'' There is nothing in the record to suggest that council members' authority to act independently with respect to voting on the resolution, or not voting on it at all, was compromised. 338 Conn. 330 SEPTEMBER, 2021 331 Moore v. Commissioner of Correction when he had purportedly expressed a misunderstanding of the law regarding his maximum sentencing exposure. The petitioner had rejected three plea offers, all of which called for him to plead guilty to robbery in the first degree in exchange for either a ten or fifteen year prison sentence, and proceeded to trial under the belief that the state could prove only that he was guilty of robbery in the third degree and that the maximum sentence he deserved for that offense was five years' imprisonment. The petitioner claimed that O's performance w