State v. Dudley

Citations

• 212 A.3d 1268
• 332 Conn. 639

Syllabus

Pursuant to statute (§ 54-142d), whenever a person has been convicted of an offense in this state and such offense has been decriminalized subsequent to the date of conviction, such person may file a petition with the Superior Court for an order of erasure, ''and the Superior Court or records center of the Judicial Department shall direct all police and court records and records of the state's or prosecuting attorney pertaining to such case to be physically destroyed.'' The defendant appealed from the trial court's denial of his petition, filed pursuant to § 54-142d, to erase the records related to its finding that he had violated his probation. The defendant had been charged in 2010 with the possession and sale of a controlled substance and, in 2012, was convicted on a plea of guilty to possession of less than one-half ounce of marijuana. At the time of the defendant's conduct that led to his 2012 conviction, the defendant was on probation as a result of a prior narcotics conviction, the terms of which required that the defendant not violate any federal or state criminal law. During the 2012 plea pro- ceedings, the defendant admitted that he had violated his probation. Subsequently, the trial court granted the defendant's petition to erase the records related to the 2012 conviction in light of the legislature's enactment of a statute (§ 21a-279a) in 2011 that decriminalized the pos- session of less than one-half ounce of marijuana. The trial court con- cluded, with respect to the defendant's separate petition to erase the records pertaining to his probation violation, that the defendant was not entitled to erasure of those records because a conviction was not necessary in order to find that he had violated his probation. On appeal from the trial court's denial of that petition, the defendant claimed that he was entitled to erasure because, among other reasons, the probation violation was premised on his 2012 conviction for conduct that has since been decriminalized