State v. Boyd

Citations

• 204 Conn. App. 446

Syllabus

The defendant, who had been previously convicted, on a plea of guilty, of assault in the first degree, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying in part and dismissing in part his motion to correct an illegal sentence. The defendant claimed that the trial court improperly denied that portion of his motion in which he alleged that the sentencing court had imposed his sentence in an illegal manner by relying on inaccurate information. Held that the defendant could not prevail on his claim asserted as a matter of law as the motion failed to advance a colorable claim that invoked the jurisdiction of the court; rather than truly attacking the legality of the sentencing proceedings or the sentence itself, the defendant instead challenged the continued validity of his choice to plead to reduced charges under the doctrine enunciated in North Carolina v. Alford (400 U.S. 25), and, in order for the court to have granted the defendant the relief he requested in his motion, it would have been required to open the judgment of conviction and vacate the plea agreement that was the actual basis of the challenged sentence, and, because the court lacked any authority to do so as part of the limited jurisdiction afforded under a motion to correct an illegal sentence, the motion, correctly construed, was nothing more than a collateral attack on the plea underlying the defendant's conviction; accordingly, this court concluded that the claim was properly rejected by the trial court but that the form of the judgment was improper with respect to this portion of the defendant's motion, and the case was remanded with direction to render judgment dismissing that portion of the defendant's motion. Argued November 10, 2020—officially released May 4, 2021