Argued
April 10, 2018
Procedural
History
Substitute
information charging the defendant with violation of
probation, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial
district of Hartford and tried to the court, Hon. John F.
Mulcahy, Jr., judge trial referee; judgment revoking the
defendant's probation, from which the defendant appealed
to this court. Affirmed.
Dana
H. Sanetti, assistant public defender, for the appellant
(defendant).
James
A. Killen, senior assistant state's attorney, with whom,
on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state's attorney, and
Richard J. Rubino, senior assistant state's attorney, for
the appellee (state).
DiPentima, C. J., and Alvord and Bear, Js.
OPINION
ALVORD, J.
The
defendant, Ijahmon Walcott, appeals from the judgment of the
trial court revoking his probation and imposing a sentence of
thirteen years incarceration, execution suspended after four
years, with three years of probation. On appeal, the
defendant claims that the court abused its discretion by
relying on unproven facts when it revoked his probation and
sentenced him during the dispositional phase of the violation
of probation proceeding. We affirm the judgment of the trial
court.
The
following facts and procedural history are relevant to our
resolution of this appeal. On September 9, 2005, the
defendant pleaded guilty to one count of assault in the first
degree, in violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a)
(3), and one count of carrying a pistol without a permit, in
violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 2003) § 29-35
(a). The two convictions arose from an incident that occurred
on November 10, 2003, when the defendant was fifteen years
old and shot a woman in the chest. The court imposed a total
effective sentence of twenty-five years incarceration,
suspended after twelve years, followed by five years of
probation. In addition to the standard conditions of
probation, the sentencing court imposed special conditions of
probation. The defendant was released from incarceration on
October 20, 2014, and his probationary period commenced.
The
standard and special conditions of his probation required,
inter alia, the defendant to submit to random urine testing
and mental health evaluation and/or treatment, not possess
any drugs and/or narcotics, and ‘‘not violate any
criminal law of the United States, this state or any other
state or territory.'' On October 23, 2014, the
defendant signed the conditions of probation form,
acknowledging that he read the form, and that he understood
the conditions and would abide by them.
On
December 7, 2015, the defendant, who was still on probation,
was arrested and subsequently charged with, inter alia,
criminal possession of a revolver in violation of General
Statutes § 53a-217c, and possession of a controlled
substance in violation of General Statutes § 21a-279 (a)
(1). Thereafter, on March 31, 2016, he was charged with
violating the conditions of his probation in violation of
General Statutes § 53a-32.
The
record reveals that the following events led to the
defendant's arrest on December 7, 2015. Officer Robert
Fogg, a member of the shooting task force for the Hartford
Police Department, testified that he was conducting
surveillance in the vicinity of 80 Cabot Street in Hartford
on December 7, 2015. He was accompanied by Detective Brian
Connaughton from the Windsor Police Department. They were
dressed in plain clothes and sat in an unmarked truck
preparing to execute an arrest warrant for Antonio Keane and
a search warrant for 80 Cabot Street. Although the defendant
was not the target of the search warrant, Fogg and
Connaughton observed the defendant leave through the front
door of 80 Cabot Street and lock the door behind him with a
key. Fogg and Connaughton drove closer to the defendant,
determined that he was not Keane, and continued to observe 80
Cabot Street.
The
defendant walked past the officers' truck multiple times,
and Fogg and Connaughton, believing that the defendant had
identified them as police officers, called upon other
officers to continue the surveillance of 80 Cabot Street
before they left the area. Later that day, officers saw Keane
leaving 80 Cabot Street, and took him into custody while
other members of the shooting task force secured the house.
Fogg and Connaughton returned to 80 Cabot Street with the
search warrant, and they joined the other officers. Keane did
not have a key on his person, and the officers had to break
down the door in order to execute the search warrant.
The
officers searched the apartment that is located on the second
and third floors, which has two bedrooms on each floor. In
one of the bedrooms on the second floor, which Fogg
identified as Keane's bedroom, the officers found plastic
bags next to a glass container, which contained a razor blade
and a digital scale; there was a white residue on the razor
blade, scale, and container. In the drawer of a nightstand in
Keane's bedroom, the officers found a plate containing a
white, rock-like substance, another razor blade, and a second
digital scale. Officers also found several individually
packaged pieces of a ...