State v. Miranda

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STATE v. MIRANDA—CONCURRENCE
ESPINOSA, J., concurring. I agree with and join the
majority decision. Specifically, I agree that this court’s
decision in State v. Polanco, 308 Conn. 242, 61 A.3d
1084 (2013), when read together with the decision of
the United States Supreme Court in Rutledge v. United
States, 517 U.S. 292, 116 S. Ct. 1241, 134 L. Ed. 2d 419(1996), requires the conclusion that the vacatur remedy
prescribed in State v. Polanco, supra, 255, applies to
the double jeopardy violation caused by cumulative
homicide convictions arising from the killing of a single
victim. I write separately only to emphasize that in the
present case, as mentioned by the majority, the state
did not argue that the merger remedy was appropriate
because the defendant, Pedro L. Miranda, had been
sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and
therefore could not suffer any collateral consequences
by virtue of having both his conviction for murder and
his conviction for felony murder appear on his record.
See footnote 8 of the majority opinion. Accordingly,
the question of whether the absence of such collateral
consequences would render the merger remedy appro-
priate in a particular case is not resolved by today’s
decision.
Accordingly, I concur.