Mack v. Commissioner of Correction

── Mack v. Commissioner of Correction ── Court: Connecticut Appellate Court Date: June 02, 2026 Author: Clark Category: General ************************************************ The “officially released” date that appears near the beginning of an opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it is released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for the filing of postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecti- cut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying an opinion that appear in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ************************************************  Mack v. Commissioner of Correction RICARDO MACK v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION (AC 46562) Clark, Westbrook and Palmer, Js. Syllabus The petitioner, who had previously been convicted of, inter alia, murder, appealed, following the denial of his petition for certification to appeal from the habeas court’s judgment denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He claimed, inter alia, that the court improperly rejected his claim that his prior habeas counsel, M, had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to raise in his previous habeas action two claims of ineffective assistance against his criminal trial counsel, P. Held: The habeas court abused its discretion in denying the petitioner’s petition for certification to appeal, as his challenge to the court's resolution of the issue was not frivolous and warranted appellate review. The habeas court properly rejected the petitioner’s claim that M provided ineffective assistance by failing to raise claims in his prior habeas action that P had provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to certain evidence pertaining to the victim’s autopsy in violation of his right to confrontation under the United States constitution, as the court properly determined that the petitioner failed to meet his burden of proving M provided ineffective assistance, the petitioner having failed to prove that P performed deficiently in failing to object to the admissibility of the autopsy report and certain testimony about the report. The petitioner’s claim that the habeas court improperly rejected his claim that M provided ineffective assistance by failing to raise claims in his prior habeas action that P had provided ineffective assistance by failing to advise him regarding the availability of sentence review and to pursue such review on his behalf lacked merit, as, even assuming that P rendered ineffective assistance by failing to represent the petitioner with respect to sentence review, the petitioner failed to demonstrate that M performed deficiently by not raising a claim of ineffective assistance against P predicated on P’s failure to seek sentence review for the petitioner. Argued September 4, 2025—officially released June 2, 2026 Procedural History Amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Tolland, where the court, Oliver, J., granted the respondent’s motion to dismiss count one of the petition; th