Summary
This Connecticut Appellate Court decision affirms the defendant's conviction for illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle. The court reviews several unpreserved constitutional claims, including challenges to the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, a Second Amendment right-to-bear-arms claim, and due process arguments regarding statutory vagueness and overinclusiveness. Applying the State v. Golding standard for unpreserved claims, the appellate court finds the record inadequate or the claims unmeritorious, resulting in an affirmation of the trial court's judgment.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the defendant could obtain Golding review of his unpreserved claim that the machete seized from his vehicle should have been suppressed under the plain view doctrine.
- Whether the defendant could obtain Golding review of his unpreserved Second Amendment challenge to General Statutes § 29-38 under New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen.
- Whether General Statutes § 29-38 was unconstitutionally vague as applied to the defendant because it permitted arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement.
- Whether General Statutes § 29-38 was unconstitutionally overinclusive as applied to the defendant's possession of a machete.
- Whether the judgment should be affirmed.
Holdings
- The claim that the machete should have been suppressed was not reviewable under the first prong of Golding because the trial-court record was inadequate to determine whether the plain view doctrine justified the seizure.
- The defendant's Second Amendment challenge was not reviewable under the first prong of Golding because the record lacked the factual findings necessary to apply Bruen to a machete.
- The defendant's unpreserved as-applied vagueness claim failed under the third prong of Golding because he did not establish that § 29-38 permitted arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement against him.
- The defendant's unpreserved overinclusiveness claim was not reviewable under the first prong of Golding because the record did not establish the purpose for which he possessed the machete or whether his conduct fell outside the statute's rational core.
Key quotations
“Consequently, any decision by this court concerning the validity of the seizure would be ‘‘entirely speculative without the necessary factual and legal conclusions furnished by the trial court, [and] it is [therefore] unreviewable under the first prong of Golding.’’” (Part I)
“Because the defendant in the present case failed to preserve his Bruen claim and is therefore required to establish that the record is adequate for review under the first prong of Golding, we decline to remand the case for further proceedings.” (Part II)
“Because the issue of whether § 29-38 is unconstitutionally overinclusive was not before the court, the record is inadequate to review the defendant’s claim.” (Part IV)
Factual background
During a March 5, 2019 traffic stop, police observed items being thrown from the defendant's vehicle before it stopped. An officer saw a machete between the driver's seat and center console, and police later found suspected crack cocaine in the vehicle and suspected narcotics discarded on the street. Testing confirmed that the discarded bags contained heroin, fentanyl, and tramadol and that the bag in the vehicle contained crack cocaine. The defendant was convicted of possessing the machete in a motor vehicle and later received an enhanced sentence after pleading guilty as a persistent serious felony offender.
Procedural history
The State charged the defendant with narcotics offenses, illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle, tampering with physical evidence, failure to use a turn signal, and being a persistent serious felony offender. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to suppress the crack cocaine found in his vehicle, and the jury acquitted him of the narcotics charges but convicted him under General Statutes § 29-38. The defendant then pleaded guilty to the part B persistent-offender information and received a total effective sentence of six years of incarceration followed by four years of special parole. The Connecticut Appellate Court affirmed, declining to review or rejecting the unpreserved claims under Golding.