State v. Salters

Citations

• 194 Conn. App. 670

Syllabus

The defendant, who had been convicted of one count of assault of an employee of the Department of Correction, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying his motion to correct an illegal sentence. The defendant claimed, inter alia, that the trial court abused its discretion because the sentencing court substantially relied on the state's materially inaccurate information at sentencing. Held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence: the defendant could not establish that the sentencing court relied on certain claimed inaccurate informa- tion in the state's sentencing memorandum and an attached affidavit from a police detective that the defendant was a leader of a gang and that he was the subject of an active investigation by North Carolina law enforcement for ongoing criminal activity, as the police detective's sworn testimony far exceeded the minimum indicia of reliability required of information relied on by a court in sentencing and the defendant offered no evidence refuting the state's claims regarding his affiliation with the gang or that undermined the state's claim that he was a leader of the gang at the time he was sentenced; moreover, the record confirmed the trial court's finding that the sentencing court did not specifically refer to any information from a North Carolina police detective in its sentencing remarks, and the trial court discussed and applied correctly the appropriate standard of actual reliance in that it determined appropri- ately that there was nothing in the record that indicated that the sentenc- ing court relied on information regarding the defendant's activities in North Carolina to fashion the defendant's sentence; furthermore, because the defendant failed to establish that the sentencing court relied on inaccurate or unreliable information, his other claims on appeal necessarily failed. Argued September 17—officially released December