On October 10, 2006 the Connecticut Appellate Court upheld a right to counsel claim made by the criminal clinic in a case on which students co-wrote the defendant’s briefs and which a student, Emily Dean ’06, argued in late May. The Appellate Court reversed the defendant’s six felony convictions and ordered a new trial.

Appellate Clinic student co-wrote Connecticut Supreme Court brief and then presented oral argument in support of lower court’s judgment in our client’s favor (won by two other Clinic students the previous year). Client was a prisoner who challenged a new parole eligibility law. Under new parole law, petitioner (and over 800 other Connecticut inmates) were required to serve an extra 35% of their sentences before being parole eligible. At the habeas corpus trial the Trial Clinic prevailed on constitutional grounds (violation of ex post facto prohibition). On appeal the Supreme Court affirmed on statutory grounds.

Appeal from denial of habeas corpus actions brought by two inmates deprived of opportunity to earn statutory good time reductions in their sentences because they were transferred to Connecticut’s super-maximum security prison, Northern Correctional, and placed in administrative segregation for a minimum of one year. Case was tried by clinic students at trial level. Appellate Court and Supreme Court both rejected constitutional and statutory challenges to administrative policy excluding inmates at Northern from earning good time.

Search and Seizure case argued before Connecticut Supreme Court by student attorney. Raised state constitutional issue: whether police may search a car for weapons when its driver and passenger have been removed, personally frisked, and the police intend to give them a traffic summons and release them if no weapons are found.

Client prosecuted under never-before-used statute, interfering with the legislative process, for chanting “Gay rights, lesbian rights,” during Governor O’Neill’s last state of the state address. Client challenged statute’s constitutionality facially and as it applied to her. Client pled nolo contendere conditional on right to pursue appeal of free speech issues. Supreme Court held that Connecticut Constitution is more speech protective than first amendment but upheld constitutionality of statute.

Won remand to the trial court for reconsideration of defendant’s motion for new trial/post-trial discovery based on DNA profiling and blood testing in sexual assault/kidnapping case. Argued by student attorney. (On remand the trial court vacated the convictions and ordered new trial.)

Writ of habeas corpus claiming ineffective assistance of counsel: trial counsel had conflict of interest where counsel, himself convicted of murder in a notorious court case, continued to practice law while taking appeal and represented petitioner at trial without taking any precautions to ensure that jurors did not hold lawyer’s conviction against his client. Habeas case originally tried in Superior Court by student attorneys; students co-wrote appellate briefs and participated in oral argument before Connecticut Appellate and Supreme Courts. Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately ruled for petitioner and ordered new trial.

Our client was a 21 year old mother with a two year old baby. The father of the baby was an underage school mate of the client at the time of conception. Three years after alleged criminal act, State charged client with sexual assault in the second degree (statutory rape), which carries mandatory 9 month prison sentence and which would also have required that client register and appear on an Internet web-site for ten years as a Sex Offender under Connecticut’s “Megan’s Law”. Clinic negotiated with prosecutor for reduction of charge to misdemeanor to avoid mandatory jail time, then filed numerous pleadings, including a motion challenging Megan’s law’s constitutionality as applied to client and a motion for the court to recognize the child as a “victim” under state law and to appoint a lawyer to represent child’s interests (in having mother not subject to Sex Offender registration). Court recognized child as “victim” and permitted a guardian ad litem to appear to represent child’s interests. The Court later issued an order that the state may not require the client to comply with either the community notification or the registration requirements of Megan’s Law. On the misdemeanor charge, client received suspended sentence and a short period of “conditional discharge” (similar to unsupervised probation).

Our client was an 18 year old high school student charged with a felony for stabbing another teenager in the back during a street brawl. Although the victim’s injuries were not life-threatening, both the prosecutor and judge expressed views at the outset that the crime was too serious for resolution through a form of pretrial probation, called accelerated rehabilitation, that, once completed, results in the defendant having a clean record. After extensive investigation of the numerous eyewitnesses in the case and protracted and intense negotiations with the prosecutor, the charges were reduced and client was ultimately given accelerated rehabilitation.

In the middle of a first degree sexual assault trial, the defendant’s attorney contacted the Criminal Clinic and we agreed to file a “motion in limine” and supporting memorandum of law on the defendant’s behalf asking that the trial judge bar the state from using the defendant’s arson conviction last year for impeachment purposes when the defendant testified in his defense. Connecticut evidence law makes such a felony conviction presumptively admissible for impeachment purposes. Working on extremely short notice, three student attorneys researched and drafted a lengthy memorandum setting forth multiple grounds for barring impeachment and one of the students presented oral argument to the court–which granted the motion in limine for the defense. The defendant testified and was later acquitted by the jury.