Argued
September 19, 2019
Procedural
History
Information,
in the first case, charging the defendant with the crimes of
possession of one-half ounce or more of a cannabis-type
substance within 1500 feet of a school and sale of a
controlled substance, and information, in the second case,
charging the defendant with violation of probation, brought
to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Middlesex,
where the court Keegan, J., denied the
defendant's motions to dismiss; thereafter, the defendant
was presented to the court on conditional pleas of nolo
contendere to sale of a controlled substance and violation of
probation; judgments in accordance with the pleas;
subsequently, the state entered a nolle prosequi on the
charge of possession of one-half ounce or more of a
cannabis-type substance within 1500 feet of a school, and the
defendant filed separate appeals to this court, which
consolidated the appeals. Affirmed.
Naomi
T. Fetterman, with whom was Aaron J. Romano, for the
appellant (defendant).
James
M. Ralls, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the
brief, were Michael Gailor, state's attorney, and Russell
Zentner, senior assistant state's attorney, for the
appellee (state).
DiPentima, C. J., and Keller and Sheldon, Js.
OPINION
SHELDON, J.
In this
consolidated appeal, the defendant, William Hyde Bradley,
appeals from judgments that were rendered against him by the
trial court following his entry of conditional pleas of nolo
contendere to charges of sale of a controlled substance in
violation of General Statutes § 21a-277 (b) and
violation of probation in violation of General Statutes
§ 53a-32. On appeal, the defendant claims that the court
erred in denying his motions to dismiss those charges,
wherein he argued, inter alia, that his prosecution under
Connecticut's statutes criminalizing the possession and
sale of marijuana violated his rights under the equal
protection clause of the United States constitution because
such statutes were enacted for the illicit purpose of
discriminating against persons of African-American and
Mexican descent. We affirm the judgments of the court,
concluding that it did not err in denying the defendant's
motions to dismiss. We do so, however, on the alternative
ground raised by the state that the defendant, as a nonmember
of either group of persons against whom he claims that the
challenged statutes were enacted to discriminate, lacked
standing to bring such an equal protection claim.
Accordingly, we do not reach the merits of the
defendant's equal protection claim on this appeal.
The
following procedural history and facts, as stipulated to by
the parties, are relevant to our resolution of this appeal.
On January 13, 2017, while the defendant was serving a
sentence of probation in connection with a prior conviction
of possession of marijuana with intent to sell, probation
officers conducting a home visit at his residence discovered
approximately thirty ounces of marijuana in his possession.
On the basis of that discovery, the state charged the
defendant, in two separate informations, as follows: in
docket number M09M-CR17-0210994-S, with one count each of
possession of one-half ounce or more of marijuana within 1500
feet of a school in violation of General Statutes §
21a-279 (b) and sale of a controlled substance in violation
of § 21a-277 (b); and in docket number
MMX-CR14-0204977-T, with violation of probation in violation
of § 53a-32.
The
defendant moved to dismiss the charges by filing two parallel
motions to dismiss, one in each docket number. He argued in
those motions, inter alia, that his prosecution under
Connecticut's statutes criminalizing the possession and
sale of marijuana violated (1) his right to equal protection
under the fourteenth amendment to the United States
constitution because such statutes were enacted for the
illicit purpose of discriminating against persons of
African-American and Mexican descent; and (2) his right to
equal protection under article first, § 20, of the
constitution of Connecticut because the enforcement of such
statutes had a disparate impact on persons of
African-American descent. The state filed a memorandum of law
in opposition to the defendant's motions to dismiss, to
which the defendant responded by filing a reply. Following a
hearing on the motions, the court ordered the parties to file
supplemental memoranda addressing whether the defendant, whom
the court had found to be Caucasian, had standing to bring an
equal protection challenge to statutes on the ground that
they had been enacted for the purpose of discriminating
against members of racial or ethnic minority groups of which
he was not a member. After the parties filed their
supplemental memoranda, the court heard oral argument.
Thereafter, in a memorandum of decision dated June 1, 2018,
the court agreed with the defendant that, regardless of his
race or ethnicity, he had standing to bring an equal
protection challenge to the statutes under which he was
charged because there was a genuine likelihood that he, as a
person so charged, would be convicted under those statutes.
The court went on to rule, however, that the defendant could
not prevail on the merits of his equal protection claim
because even if he could prove that enforcement of the
challenged statutes had a disparate impact on persons of
African-American or Mexican descent, he could not prove that
the legislature's true purpose in enacting those statutes
was to discriminate against the members of either such group.
Thereafter, upon conducting an analysis under State v.
Geisler, 222 Conn. 672, 685, 610 A.2d 1225 (1992), the
court also rejected the defendant's additional claim that
his prosecution under the challenged statutes violated his
rights under the equal protection clause of the Connecticut
constitution, which he had based on the theory that that
provision affords greater protection than its federal
counterpart because violation of that provision, unlike the
federal equal protection clause, can be established by proof
of disparate impact alone.[1] Rejecting that argument, the court
denied the defendant's motions to dismiss in their
entirety.
On
August 28, 2018, the defendant entered pleas of nolo
contendere to charges of sale of a controlled substance and
violation of probation, which were based on his alleged
possession of, with intent to sell, the marijuana that the
probation officers had found in his residence. The
defendant's pleas, which were entered pursuant to General
Statutes § 54-94a, were conditioned on preserving his
right to appeal from his resulting convictions based on the
trial court's prior denial of his motions to dismiss. The
court thereafter sentenced the defendant as follows: on his
conviction of sale of a controlled substance, he was
sentenced to an unconditional discharge; and on his violation
of probation, his probation was revoked, and he was sentenced
to a term of five and one-half years of incarceration,
execution suspended, and two years of probation. These
appeals, later consolidated by order of this court,
followed.[2]
On
appeal, the defendant claims that the court improperly denied
his motions to dismiss. He argues here, as he did before the
trial court, that Connecticut's statutes criminalizing
the possession and sale of marijuana were enacted for the
illicit purpose of discriminating against persons of
African-American and Mexican descent, and thus that his
prosecution under those statutes violated the equal
protection clause of the United States constitution. The
defendant does not claim, however, that the court erred in
denying his alternative equal protection claim under the
Connecticut constitution.
In his
brief, the defendant initially traces the history of cannabis
cultivation from ancient times through the time of its
criminalization in Connecticut in the 1930s. He then
describes and documents what he claims to have been the
pervasive atmosphere in this country in the 1930s of
discrimination against racial and ethnic minority groups
whose members were known or believed to use marijuana.
Against this background, he argues that the federal marijuana
prohibition that was enacted in that time frame, for the
illicit purpose of discriminating against African-Americans
and Mexicans, influenced several states, including
Connecticut, to enact their own state laws criminalizing the
possession and sale of marijuana for the same discriminatory
purpose. The state disputes the defendant's contention
that Connecticut's statutes criminalizing the possession
and sale of marijuana were enacted for the purpose of
discriminating against racial and ethnic minorities. As a
threshold matter, however, it argues, as it did before the
trial court, that the court lacked subject matter
jurisdiction over the defendant's equal protection claim
because, as a Caucasian, he lacked standing to vindicate the
equal protection rights of members of racial or ethnic
minority groups to which he did not belong. The defendant
counters by arguing, as he did successfully before the trial
court, that regardless of his race or ethnicity, he had
standing to raise his constitutional claim because, as a
person charged under such allegedly unconstitutional
statutes, he personally faced a genuine risk of being
convicted thereunder if he were not permitted to prosecute
his motions to dismiss.
Because
a party's lack of standing to bring a claim implicates
the trial court's subject matter jurisdiction over that
claim, we must first address this jurisdictional issue. See
New Hartford v. Connecticut Resources Recovery
Authority, 291 Conn. 511, 518, 970 A.2d 583 (2009). We
begin by reviewing some well established principles of
standing. ‘‘Generally, standing is in herently
intertwined with a court's subject matter jurisdiction. .
. . We have long held that because [a] determination
regarding a trial court's subject matter jurisdiction is
a question of law, our review is plenary. . . . In addition,
because standing implicates the court's subject matter
jurisdiction, the issue of standing is not ...