State v. Coleman

Citations

• 199 Conn. App. 172

Syllabus

Convicted, on a conditional plea of nolo contendere, of the crimes of assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree and criminal possession of a firearm, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court improperly denied his motions to dismiss the charges against him because he was not brought to trial within a reasonable period of time in violation of his right to a speedy trial under the sixth amendment and his right under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (§ 54-186 et seq.) to a final disposition of his case within 180 days from the date on which he requested a speedy disposition. The defendant had been arrested in 2017 in connection with a shooting he was alleged to have committed in 2014. DNA was recovered from a cap that was left at the scene of the shooting. Shortly after the shooting, the police received information that the defendant had fled to Maine and obtained a warrant authorizing the taking of a DNA sample from him that was to be compared with the DNA sample from the cap. The DNA samples were not sent to the state's forensics laboratory until 2016, when the laboratory matched the defendant's DNA with that on the cap. In July, 2016, the police submitted to the state's attorney's office a draft arrest warrant application for the defendant, which was not signed by the affiant until February, 2017, and by the court until March, 2017, when the defendant was in federal custody in New Hampshire. The defendant was not returned to Connecticut and arrested until August, 2017. After the defendant entered his plea but prior to sentencing, he filed a second motion to dismiss, claiming that the state had failed to comply with the 180 day requirement for a final disposition of his case pursuant to § 54- 186 et seq. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, reasoning that there had been no objection to the course of the proceed- ings under § 54-186 et seq., and rendered judgment in accordance with the def