STATE v. PEDRO L. CARRASQUILLO, SC 17568

Judicial District of New Haven at New Haven

 Criminal; Whether General Statutes §§ 46b-127 and 53a-35a are Unconstitutional Because they Subject Juveniles Charged with Murder to the Mandatory Minimum Sentence of Twenty-Five Years of Incarceration.  The state alleged that when the defendant was fifteen years of age, he shot and killed Chauncey Robinson while Robinson was sitting in his automobile.  Because the state charged the defendant with murder, his case was automatically transferred from the docket for juvenile matters to the regular criminal docket of the Superior Court pursuant to General Statutes § 46b-127 (a).  Thereafter, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that § 46b-127 (a) and General Statutes § 53a-35a (2) violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the eighth amendment to the United States constitution because they automatically subject all fourteen and fifteen year old children charged with murder to the mandatory minimum sentence of twenty-five years of incarceration without any consideration of mitigating factors regarding their juvenile status.  Relying on Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), he maintained that even juveniles who commit serious crimes cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders because (1) a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in juveniles more often than in adults; (2) juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures than adults; and (3) the character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult.  The trial court denied the motion to dismiss, stating that Roper was inapplicable because it merely held that the eighth amendment forbade the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders.  It emphasized that the Roper court itself affirmed a penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of release, a sentence more severe than the maximum potential punishment for the murder charge at issue in the present matter.  Subsequently, during closing arguments, the prosecutor contended that the motive of the defendant for committing the murder could be inferred from evidence that an acquaintance of the defendant, Samuel Redd, who kicked in the window of Robinson's automobile shortly before he was killed, strongly disliked Robinson for firing gunshots in Redd's neighborhood.  The defendant objected to the prosecutor's statements on the ground that there was no evidence indicating that he shared Redd's dislike of Robinson.  The court overruled this objection, and, thereafter, the jury found the defendant guilty of murder.  In this appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court improperly denied his motion to dismiss and that the prosecutor's statements regarding the defendant's motive constituted prosecutorial impropriety.