State v. Michael A., 297 Conn. 808

Summary

The Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed the defendant’s resentencing to seventeen years of imprisonment following the reversal of his sexual assault conviction while leaving his risk-of-injury conviction intact. The court held that the aggregate package theory permitted the trial court to restructure the sentence on the remaining conviction. It also held that the defendant’s nolo contendere plea and jury-trial waiver validly encompassed the persistent serious felony offender statute’s public-interest determination and continued to apply at resentencing.

Holdings

1. When a multicount conviction is partially reversed, the aggregate package theory permits the trial court to reconstruct the sentence on the remaining convictions in a manner effectuating its original sentencing intent, provided that the revised total effective sentence does not exceed the original sentence. The Appellate Court's remand order did not prohibit that restructuring.
2. A defendant's nolo contendere plea to a persistent serious felony offender charge necessarily waives the right to a jury determination of both the offender-status predicate and the statutory public-interest factor supporting enhanced incarceration, when the plea is accompanied by a constitutionally adequate canvass.
3. The defendant's original jury-trial waiver remained valid and applied to the postremand resentencing because the proceeding was a resentencing, not a retrial of the criminal charge, and the record—including the defendant's failure to challenge the waiver earlier and his request to retain an enhanced sentence—confirmed the continuing scope of the waiver.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court had authority, after reversal of one conviction and remand for entry of judgment on that offense, to restructure the aggregate sentence imposed on the remaining conviction.
2. Whether the defendant's 2004 nolo contendere plea and jury-trial waiver validly waived a jury determination of the persistent serious felony offender statute's public-interest sentencing factor.
3. Whether that waiver remained valid and applicable at the defendant's 2008 resentencing proceeding.

Disposition

affirmed