State v. Malone

Citations

• 346 Conn. 552

Syllabus

The defendant appealed from the trial court's denial of his motion to dismiss a murder charge that the state had reinstituted against him after his first prosecution was terminated when the trial court accepted the state's entry of a nolle prosequi and denied, without prejudice, an earlier motion to dismiss in the first prosecution. The state had entered the nolle prosequi pursuant to statute (§ 54-56b) on the basis of the disappearance of two witnesses the state deemed material to its prosecution of the defendant. In the second prosecution, which was commenced approxi- mately eight months after the first prosecution was terminated, the defendant, in support of his motion to dismiss, claimed, inter alia, that new evidence detailed in the indictment in the second prosecution estab- 346 Conn. 552 MAY, 2023 553 State v. Malone lished that the missing witnesses were not material and that the state had violated his right to a speedy trial by intentionally delaying the prosecution. Held: The trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to dismiss the murder charge in the second prosecution did not constitute a final judgment, and, accordingly, this court dismissed the defendant's appeal for lack of jurisdiction: This court has consistently held that the denial of a motion to dismiss based on speedy trial grounds is not a final judgment and does not constitute an immediately appealable interlocutory ruling under the first prong of the test set forth in State v. Curcio (191 Conn. 27), as the denial of a motion to dismiss based on speedy trial grounds does not terminate the underlying criminal proceedings. Moreover, the defendant could not prevail on his claim that, because the trial court in the first prosecution denied his motion to dismiss without prejudice, the trial court's denial of the motion to dismiss in the second prosecution was appealable under the first prong of Curcio, the defendant having failed to cite authority supporting the proposition that such a combin