No speedy trials in virus era
Accused killer loses argument that court shutdown is trampling rights
Anaccused triple murderer held without bail for nearly 2 ½ years failed to persuade a judge Wednesday that the coronavirus slowdown of the state courts has trampled his Constitutional right to a speedy trial and the court suggested it remains uncertain how quickly the judiciary can resume one of its most fundamental operations.
Sergio Correa, a Hartford man charged with the especially brutal murder of three members of an eastern Connecticut family in 2017, has been unable to post a $3 million bond since his arrest in June 2018 and has tried — and failed — repeatedly to put his case before a jury. A trial had been scheduled in May, about two years after his arrest, but it was postponed indefinitely after Gov. Ned Lamont issued an emergency order that all but shut down the judiciary.
Correa’s public defenders pressed his speedy trial argument again Wednesday, referring Superior Court Judge Hunchu Kwak to a Sept. 10 opinion piece in the Courant by Chief Justice Richard Robinson that reported jury trials would resume in November.
“I think your hands are tied,” one of Correa’s public defenders, Corrie-Ann L. Mainville, told Kwak, “and you have to grant the motion.”
Kwak responded that the delay over the last six months due to the corona virus “has been and is very difficult.” But he said it is not possible for him to safely schedule a jury trial.
“This court does not have the power or the ability to start a jury trial,” Kwak said.
Kwak said a committee
convened by Chief Court Administrator Patrick Carroll is planning for a resumption of trials, “but we have heard nothing about what they are doing.”
“There are currently no plans in place to accommodate a trial,” he said.
Concern over the pandemic’s threat to public health from crowded state courtrooms led to Lamont’s March 10 executive order suspending scheduling requirements in the state courts, including law establishing deadlines for speedy trials.
The right to a speedy trial is defined in both the state and federal Constitutions, and the U.S. Supreme Court has called it the “one of the most basic rights reserved by our Constitution.” It is intended to prevent defendants from languishing in prison and protect the public’s interest in preserving witnesses and their memories of events.
Clashes between concern for public health and the rights of litigants have flared repeatedly since the state courts, where there are tens of thousands of pending cases, slowed down in March and, more recently, began to reopen. But jury trials, which involve collecting dozens of potential jurors, witnesses and others, are a logistical challenge. As trial delays continue, more criminal defendants unable to post bond have or are contemplating bringing speedy trial challenges.
Should a criminal defendant prevail in a speedy trial, the legal remedy is dismissal of charges.
Correa has been locked up and awaiting trial for an unusually long period, but is hardly a sympathetic figure.
He is accused with his stepsister, Ruth, of plotting with Matthew Lindquist to stage a robbery of Lindquist’s parents’ home in Griswold on Dec. 19, 2017. The police say Lindquist was to let Correa and his step sister into the home to steal guns in exchange for a payoff in heroin.
But Matthew Lindquist apparently had second thoughts just as he arrived at his parent’s home with the Correas the night of the murder.
He dashed into the woods. Correa is accused of running him down and, with Ruth’s help, chopping him to death with a machete.
Ruth Correa, who is cooperating with authorities in return for a 40-year prison sentence, said she and Correa then sneaked into the house through an open door and beat parents Kenneth and Janet Lindquist to death with a bat. Ruth said the two then collected valuables from the home and set it on fire as they left.
In denying Correa’s speedy trial challenge, Kwak rejected Mainville’s arguments that Connecticut’s coronavirus mitigation efforts have been amongthe most successful in the country and the state can safely reopen the courts, just as it has allowed the reopening of a wide swath of businesses. Mainville said the judiciary can follow models drawn by other states which have published extensively on how to safely resume trials.
“It strains credulity to deprive Mr. Correa of his constitutional right to a speedy trial on the grounds of a public health emergency, while at the same time, courts are expanding business to include afternoon dockets requiring twenty-five defendants to appear in court — with the lawyers, family members, court staff, and members of the public — and while citizens of this state are required to return to work and school and are now free to dine at restaurants, frequent movie theatres, bowling alleys, and fitness gyms, albeit with restrictions,” Mainville wrote in the motion for a speedy trial.
In addition to denying the motion, Kwak refused to reduce Correa’s bond to an amount that would allow his release.
Correa has the right to appeal directly to Robinson, who would decide whether to have the full Supreme Court consider the question of whether there is a safe way to protect both Correa’s rights and public health.
There was little surprise Wednesday in Kwak’s denial of the speedy trial motion. Earlier in the hearing in Superior Court in New London, he told Correa’s lawyers he was uncertain whether he could schedule an evidentiary hearing in the case — a hearing that would involve calling about four witnesses into a courtroom, and questioning them before the judge one at a time.
Kwak tentatively scheduled a hearing, but said he would have to clear the proceeding with the court administration. He said it “was not certain” whether an evidentiary hearing would be possible.
Correa appeared at the hearing Wednesday on a television screen, by way of a video hook-up. About a dozen others — lawyers, court personnel, relatives, reporters, spectators — were scattered, socially distanced, around the courtroom.