Turner v. Commissioner of Correction

Full title: COREY TURNER, INMATE #231802 v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION

Court: Connecticut Superior Court Judicial District of Tolland at Somers

Date published: Jul 2, 2007

2007 Ct. Sup. 12238 (Conn. Super. Ct. 2007)

Opinion

No. CV04-4000240

July 2, 2007

Supplemental Memorandum of Decision

S.T. FUGER, JR., Judge.

This Court issued a detailed Memorandum of Decision on June 20th, 2007 denying the Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus. The Court had received the Petitioner's post-trial brief on June 6th, 2007, read it, and, in fact, gave it full and careful consideration. In an unplanned, but unfortunately effective, effort to prove that to err is human,¹ the Court in the mistaken belief that it had set down the date of June 6th, 2007² as the date upon which simultaneous post-trial briefs were to be due, proceeded to assume that the respondent had eschewed her opportunity to file a brief and went ahead in a fit of efficiency to write the Memorandum of Decision. It was, therefore, a significant surprise to this Court to receive the Petitioner's motion for Reconsideration (undoubtedly filed after both parties had received the Memorandum of Decision denying the petition) that, quite astutely and correctly, pointed out that the Court had issued its decision before allowing the Respondent an opportunity to file her post-trial brief. Petitioner's counsel was concerned that in so doing, this Court had placed the Respondent at a disadvantage. Given this, the Court, in an effort to ensure that the Respondent still had the chance to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory," granted the Petitioner's motion.

1 "Good nature and good sense must ever join; To err is human, to forgive divine." Alexander Pope (1688-1744), British poet. Essay on Criticism (Fr. II).
Poetical Works [Alexander Pope]. Herbert Davis, ed. (1978; repr. 1990) Oxford University Press.

2 Coincidentally the 63rd anniversary of the World War II D-Day Invasion of Normandy.

On June 26th, 2007, the Respondent waived her opportunity to file a post-trial brief. Consequently, the oversight on the part of the Court is rendered harmless. The Petitioner has, of course, had a full opportunity to submit his position to this Court.³

3 Arguably, since Petitioner was to be permitted the opportunity to file a reply brief after the Respondent filed her brief, it is conceivable that the Petitioner might have had something to say in that Reply brief that would have been salient and persuasive. However, since the right to file a reply brief matures only after the Respondent submitted her brief, the waiver of the right to submit a brief by the Respondent extinguished this inchoate right of the Petitioner to file a reply.

The Court elects to reconsider its previous decision and leave it undisturbed. The Memorandum of Decision of June 20th, 2007 stands.

Accordingly, the Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus is denied.