State v. Holley

Citations

• 197 Conn. App. 161

Syllabus

The defendant, who had been convicted, on a plea of nolo contendere, of four counts of the crime of criminal possession of a firearm appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying his motion to correct an illegal sentence. In his motion, the defendant claimed that, because the four firearms were found in a single event, his possession of them constituted only one offense, and, therefore, the imposition by the sentencing court of consecutive sentences violated the federal and state constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy. In concluding that the consecutive sentences did not violate double jeopardy, the trial court analyzed the controlling statute ((Rev. to 2013) § 53a-217 (a) (1)), which provided in relevant part that a person is guilty of criminal posses- sion of a firearm when such person possesses a firearm and has been convicted of a felony. Held: 1. The trial court properly concluded that the defendant's consecutive senten- ces did not violate the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy and denied the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence: that court properly construed § 53a-217 (a) (1) as criminalizing the posses- sion of a single firearm, and, therefore, the plain and unambiguous words of the statute demonstrated the legislature's intent to punish the possession of each individual firearm; moreover the defendant's reliance on State v. Rawls (198 Conn. 111) and State v. Ruscoe (212 Conn. 223) in support of his contention that § 53a-217 (a) (1) was ambiguous was unavailing, as those cases were factually distinguishable from the pres- ent case because § 53a-217 (a) (1) criminalized the possession of ''a'' firearm, not ''any'' firearm, as was the case in Rawls, and the word firearm is not a word that can be both singular and plural, as was the case with the word at issue in Ruscoe. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly failed to apply the rule of lenity when a reasona