State v. Dukes

── State v. Dukes ── Court: Connecticut Appellate Court Date: June 09, 2026 Author: Alvord 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. ************************************************  State v. Dukes STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. MALCOM ELTON DUKES (AC 48115) Alvord, Suarez and Seeley, Js. Syllabus The defendant, who had been on probation as a result of prior criminal con- victions, appealed from the trial court’s judgment revoking his probation and sentencing him to eight years of incarceration. The defendant claimed, inter alia, that the court erroneously found him in violation of his probation when it relied on evidence the police seized during an inventory search of his vehicle and inculpatory statements he made to the police. Held: This court declined to review, pursuant to State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233), the defendant’s unpreserved claim that the trial court improperly relied on the warrantless seizure by the police of his cell phone and ammunition from his vehicle, as the record was inadequate to review that claim, the defendant having failed to raise any fourth amendment claim or request that the court exclude the evidence at the violation of probation hearing, and the court made no findings concerning the validity of the inventory search or whether the police had engaged in misconduct so as to warrant application of the exclusionary rule. The record was inadequate for this court to review, pursuant to Golding, the defendant’s unpreserved claim that the inculpatory statements he made while in police custody should have been excluded at the violation of proba- tion hearing because he had not been advised of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436) prior to questioning, as the trial court did not make any factual findings or legal conclusions as to whether the defendant had been in custody or subject to interrogation, the record was unclear as to whether he had been advised of his rights pursuant to Miranda and he did not seek to exclude the statements or raise a Miranda claim at the violation of probation hearing. The evidence was sufficient for the trial court to find that the defendant violated his probation by engaging the police in a motor vehicle pursuit, evading responsibility in the operation of a motor vehicle and possessing a firearm in the vehicle, as the court’s factual findings underlying those conclusions were not clearly erroneous. The trial court’s finding that the defendant violated his probation by pos- sessing ammunition in his vehicle was clearly erroneous, as the presence of a passenger in the vehicle during the incident at issue meant that the defendant did not have exclusi