State v. Spendolini
State v. Spendolini
Opinion of the Court
The defendant was charged with the crime of perjury in violation of General Statutes § 53a-156. In this appeal the defendant challenges the court’s denial of his motion for accelerated rehabilitation. Although at an earlier stage of these proceedings we denied the state’s motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the state has nevertheless pursued the jurisdictional issue in its brief. Upon reexamination we are persuaded that we have no jurisdiction of the subject matter and therefore the appeal must be dismissed.
Appeals to this court may be taken from final judgments or actions of the Superior Court. General Statutes § 51-197a. In a criminal ease the imposition of sentence is the final judgment of the court. State v. Grotton, 180 Conn. 290, 293, 429 A.2d 871 (1980); State v. Moore, 158 Conn. 461, 463, 262 A.2d 166 (1969). Interlocutory rulings in criminal cases generally are not appealable. United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850, 98 S. Ct. 1547, 56 L. Ed. 2d 18 (1978) (denial of motion for speedy trial); Cogen v. United States, 278 U.S. 221, 49 S. Ct. 118, 73 L. Ed. 275 (1929) (denial of motion
We have recognized several narrowly defined exceptions
General Statutes § 54-56e,
Except in double jeopardy cases; Abney v. United States, supra, 659-60; a defendant does not enjoy a “right not to be tried.” See United States v. MacDonald, supra, 860 n.7, Nor does the accelerated rehabilitation statute create such a right.
The appeal is dismissed.
In this opinion Pickett and Covello, Js., concurred.
State v. Acquin, 177 Conn. 352, 416 A.2d 1209 (1979), which would appear to widen the category of exceptions has been confined to its facts. State v. Grotton, 180 Conn. 290, 293, 429 A.2d 871 (1980).
Appeals in criminal eases can only be from final judgments. Ordinarily the imposition of sentence is that judgment. The narrowly defined exceptions to this rule of finality refer to orders or decisions made at an earlier stage of criminal proceedings which possess all of the attributes of a final judgment even though they are interlocutory in form.
“[General Statutes] See. 54-56e. (Formerly See. 54-76p). accelerated pretrial rehabilitation. There shall be a pretrial program for accelerated rehabilitation of persons accused of a crime, not of a serious nature. The court may, in its discretion, invoke such program on motion of the defendant or on motion of a state’s attorney or prosecuting attorney with respect to an accused who, the court believes, will probably not offend again and who has no previous record of conviction of crime and who states under oath in open court under the penalties of perjury that he has never had such program invoked in his behalf, provided the defendant shall agree thereto and provided notice has been given by the accused, on a form approved by rule of court, to the victim or victims of such crime, if any, by registered or certified mail and such vietim or victims have an opportunity to be heard thereon. Unless good cause is shown, this section shall not be applicable to persons
The dissenting opinion’s contention that the legislature intended, in the accelerated rehabilitation act, to create a right not to be tried was answered in a comparable situation many years ago by the United States Supreme Court in Heike v. United States, 217 U.S. 423, 30 S. Ct. 539, 54 L. Ed. 821 (1910). In Heike, Congress granted statutory transactional immunity from prosecution or punishment to any defendant ealled upon to testify before a grand jury. Heike raised this defense and when it was decided against him, sought a writ.of error in the Supreme Court. The government’s motion to dismiss the writ upon the ground that the judgment was not final was granted. The court observed (p. 431) : “In view of the provisions of this act it is argued that the complete immunity
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). Because I believe that the conclusion this court reaches today is inconsistent with the rule of State v. Bell, 179 Conn. 98, 425 A.2d 574 (1979), I dissent.
The statute establishing accelerated pretrial rehabilitation, General Statutes § 54-56e, conced-edly implicates no privacy rights. Instead, it offers, to qualified defendants, “a pretrial program” under wMch a qualified defendant “shall be released to the custody of the office of adult probation . . . under such conditions as the court shall order. . . . If such defendant satisfactorily completes his period of probation, he may apply for dismissal of the charges against him and the court, on finding such satisfactory completion, shall dismiss such charges.” As I read tMs statute, eligible defendants are given two separate and distinet rights: the right to a pretrial suspension of criminal proceedings and the right to dismissal of criminal charges upon successful completion of the stipulated period of probation. Although access to a probationary resolution of criminal charges can be restored after an erroneous conviction, I do not understand how access to pretrial suspension can ever be regained.
Nor am I persuaded that Heike v. United States, 217 U.S. 423, 30 S. Ct. 539, 54 L. Ed. 821 (1910), compels a different result. Heike determined only that Congress, in enacting the federal immunity statute, intended to create a shield from successful prosecution rather than a defense to prosecution itself. Nothing in Heike precludes a state legislature from evidencing a different and more sweeping intent. Furthermore, the purposes served by the federal immunity statute and the state accelerated rehabilitation program are clearly distinguishable. Whereas the federal statute is designed to encourage witnesses to cooperate with the judicial process, and necessarily entails some exposure to legal proceedings, the state statute is intended to bypass prosecutorial proceedings and to keep accelerated rehabilitation cases off the docket
The accelerated rehabilitation statute, because it, in contradistinction to other statutes, creates a pretrial right to suspension of criminal proceedings, permits an immediate interlocutory appeal. Like the defendant in State v. Bell, 179 Conn. 98, 99, 425 A.2d 574 (1979), this defendant cannot regain, through subsequent reversal of criminal proceedings, the statutory right “lost through the denial of his application and the consequent public trial.” On more traditional reasoning, the denial of accelerated rehabilitation also meets the test of a final judgment established in Gores v. Rosenthal, supra, and Prevedini v. Mobil Oil Corporation, supra. Under that test, a judgment is final if its effect is to conclude the rights of the appealing party so that further proceedings after the ruling cannot affect those rights. Further proceedings in a criminal trial, whose purpose is to determine whether the defendant has committed the crime with which he has been charged, cannot affect his right to a pretrial suspension of inquiry into guilt or inno
Since I would therefore adjudicate this appeal on its merits, I would have to reach the question of the propriety of the trial court’s order denying the defendant access to the program of accelerated rehabilitation. In the present circumstances, however, discussion of the merits would serve no useful purpose and might have undesirable implications for further review in the future. I therefore limit this dissent to the jurisdictional question.
In this opinion Healey, J., concurred.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- State of Connecticut v. Michael Spendolini
- Cited By
- 44 cases
- Status
- Published