BERNALE BRYANT v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION, SC 17896

Judicial District of Tolland

 Habeas Corpus; Whether Appellate Court Properly Reversed Habeas Court's Ruling Granting Petitioner's Writ of Habeas Corpus.  After a criminal trial in which the state alleged that the petitioner beat Edward Jones to death, the court convicted the petitioner of manslaughter in the first degree.  The petitioner subsequently brought a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance in failing to present the testimony of four witnesses, which he claimed could have led a jury to harbor a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.  He specifically asserted that the testimony of these witnesses concerned the possibility that Jones was not beaten to death but died from a gunshot wound to the head.  At the habeas trial, the petitioner's trial counsel testified that he was aware of the potential witnesses and reviewed all of their statements prior to trial.  He further stated that he did not offer their testimony because he did not want to introduce the possibility that a gun was involved in the incident and expose the petitioner to a higher sentence for the crime of manslaughter with a firearm.  In addition, he testified that the potential witnesses' testimony was not supported by the other evidence in the case and that most of the witnesses arrived at the scene after the victim was injured or were not at the scene at all.  The habeas court agreed with the petitioner's claim and granted his petition, concluding that counsel improperly failed to present credible evidence of a clearly exculpatory nature in an ill-advised effort to avoid any mention of a firearm.  The respondent then appealed to the Appellate Court (99 Conn. App. 434), which reversed the habeas court's judgment.  The Appellate Court found that counsel's decision not to call the witnesses was a matter of trial strategy and that the habeas court did not accord any deference to counsel's tactical decision or make any attempt to evaluate his conduct from his perspective at the time of the petitioner's criminal trial.  Moreover, it determined that the habeas court employed hindsight to retry the case as if the omitted testimony had been admitted and speculated that such testimony would have been credited even though it was inconsistent with the petitioner's version of the events and the forensic evidence.  In this appeal, the Supreme Court will determine whether the Appellate Court's ruling was proper.