State v. Ward

Citations

• 341 Conn. 142

Syllabus

The defendant, who had been convicted, on a plea of guilty, of manslaughter in the first degree and assault in the first degree, appealed from the trial court's dismissal of his motion to correct a sentence that was imposed in an illegal manner. The defendant had claimed in his motion that he was incompetent at the time of sentencing and that the sentencing court failed to order, sua sponte, a competency evaluation and hearing before imposing sentence. The defendant submitted with his motion to correct a police report, psychiatric evaluation and records from the Department of Correction that had become available after he was sen- tenced, all of which concerned his mental illness and psychiatric treat- ment prior to sentencing. The trial court dismissed the defendant's motion to correct for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that the motion challenged his competency at the time he pleaded guilty and, thus, constituted a collateral attack on his conviction. The Appellate Court upheld the trial court's dismissal of the defendant's motion, con- cluding that he had failed to raise a colorable claim that he was incompe- tent at the time of sentencing. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdic- tion to correct his sentence on the ground that he had failed to allege a colorable claim within the scope of the rule of practice (§ 43-22) 341 Conn. 142 FEBRUARY, 2022 143 State v. Ward authorizing a judicial authority to correct an illegal sentence or a sen- tence imposed in an illegal manner. Held that the Appellate Court improp- erly upheld the trial court's dismissal of the defendant's motion to correct, as the factual allegations and evidence the defendant presented in connection with his motion made clear that he raised a colorable challenge to the character of the procedure that led to the imposition of his sentence, rather t