Court Opinion

ID: 9964213
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-29 12:02:32.758738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:14.147086
License: Public Domain

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                           Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

                     DALE KUKUCKA v. COMMISSIONER
                            OF CORRECTION
                               (AC 46059)
                                   Elgo, Suarez and Clark, Js.

                                             Syllabus

         The petitioner, who had been convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of
             strangulation in the first degree, sexual assault in the third degree, and
             assault in the third degree, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming
             that, pursuant to State v. Dickson (322 Conn. 410), his due process rights
             had been violated and that his trial and appellate counsel had rendered
             ineffective assistance. On his direct appeal from his underlying convic-
             tion, the petitioner had claimed, inter alia, that the trial court had improp-
             erly denied his motion to suppress in-court and out-of-court identifica-
             tions of him made by a witness to the assault. Dickson, which was
             decided by our Supreme Court more than four months after the petitioner
             had filed his direct appeal, held, inter alia, that, in cases in which identity
             is an issue, in-court identifications that are not preceeded by a successful
             identification in a nonsuggestive procedure implicate due process princi-
             ples. The petitioner’s appellate counsel did not raise any claim predicated
             on Dickson in either his principal or reply briefs in the direct appeal.
             The respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, filed a return to the
             petition in which he raised a special defense of procedural default
             because the petitioner had failed to raise the Dickson claim on direct
             appeal. At the habeas trial in the present case, the habeas court heard
             testimony from the petitioner, his trial counsel, and a legal expert but
             not from the petitioner’s appellate counsel. The court rendered judgment
             denying the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and, on the granting
             of certification, the petitioner appealed to this court. Held:
         1. The petitioner could not prevail on his claim that the habeas court improp-
             erly determined that he failed to satisfy the cause and prejudice test
             set forth in Reed v. Ross (468 U.S. 1) to excuse his procedural default
             for failing to raise the due process claim during his criminal trial; the
             petitioner was unable to rely on Dickson to demonstrate cause and
             prejudice to overcome the respondent’s special defense of procedural
             default, as our Supreme Court explicitly stated that Dickson may not
             be applied retroactively on collateral review.
         2. The habeas court properly denied the petitioner’s petition for a writ of
             habeas corpus: because the Dickson decision was released while the
             petitioner’s direct appeal was pending, a Dickson claim was neither
             unknown nor sufficiently novel to excuse the petitioner’s procedural
             default, and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, this court
             presumed that the petitioner’s appellate counsel made a tactical decision
             in deciding to forgo a Dickson claim during the direct appeal; moreover,
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                       Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction
          although the Supreme Court’s decision in Dickson contained clear
          instructions on how to apply the new rule in pending appeals, indicating
          that the court anticipated the possibility of viable Dickson claims arising
          in cases that were pending on appeal at the time that Dickson was
          released, the petitioner failed to challenge the habeas court’s adverse
          ruling on his claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel.

            Argued November 13, 2023—officially released April 30, 2024

                                  Procedural History

         Amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus,
       brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of
       Tolland and tried to the court, M. Murphy, J.; judgment
       denying the petition, from which the petitioner, on the
       granting of certification, appealed to this court.
       Affirmed.

         Vishal K. Garg, assigned counsel, for the appellant
       (petitioner).
         Laurie N. Feldman, assistant state’s attorney, with
       whom, on the brief, was Angela Macchiarulo, supervi-
       sory assistant state’s attorney, for the appellee (respon-
       dent).

                                        Opinion

          ELGO, J. The petitioner, Dale Kukucka, appeals from
       the judgment of the habeas court denying his petition
       for a writ of habeas corpus. On appeal, the petitioner
       claims that the court improperly denied his freestanding
       due process claim on the basis of procedural default.
       Specifically, he argues that the court erroneously con-
       cluded that the only way he could overcome procedural
       default was by showing ineffective assistance of appel-
       late counsel, and, in so concluding, it improperly
       rejected his claim that he satisfied the cause and preju-
       dice test set forth in Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 13–15,
       104 S. Ct. 2901, 82 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1984). We affirm the
       judgment of the habeas court.
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                          Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

            The following facts and procedural history are rele-
         vant to our resolution of the petitioner’s claims. As a
         result of crimes that were committed on October 19,
         2013, the petitioner was arrested, charged, and, follow-
         ing a jury trial, ultimately convicted of ‘‘strangulation
         in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-
         64aa (a) (1) (B), sexual assault in the third degree in
         violation of General Statutes § 53a-72a (a) (1), and
         assault in the third degree in violation of General Stat-
         utes § 53a-61 (a) (1).’’1 State v. Kukucka, 181 Conn. App.
         329, 331, 186 A.3d 1171, cert. denied, 329 Conn. 905,
         184 A.3d 1216 (2018). On February 17, 2016, the peti-
         tioner was sentenced to a total effective sentence of
         fifteen years of incarceration, execution suspended
         after ten years, followed by fifteen years of probation.
         From that judgment of conviction, the petitioner filed
         a direct appeal with this court on March 28, 2016. In
         his direct appeal, the petitioner claimed, in part, that
         the court had improperly ‘‘denied his motion to sup-
         press the in-court and out-of-court identifications of
         him made by a witness to the assault.’’ Id. On August
         9, 2016, the Supreme Court decided State v. Dickson,
         322 Conn. 410, 141 A.3d 810 (2016), cert. denied, 582
         U.S. 922, 137 S. Ct. 2263, 198 L. Ed. 2d 713 (2017), which
         held, inter alia, that, ‘‘in cases in which identity is an
         issue, in-court identifications that are not preceded by
         a successful identification in a nonsuggestive identifica-
         tion procedure implicate due process principles . . . .’’
         (Footnote omitted.) Id., 415. On November 8, 2016, and
         July 10, 2017, respectively, the petitioner’s appellate
         counsel filed the principal and reply briefs in his direct
             ‘‘Although the jury also found the defendant guilty of unlawful restraint
             1

         in the first degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-95 (a) and assault
         in the second degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-60a (a) (1), the
         trial court did not enter judgment on those charges because they arose from
         the ‘same incident’ as the strangulation charge. See General Statutes § 53a-
         64aa (b).’’ State v. Kukucka, 181 Conn. App. 329, 331 n.1, 186 A.3d 1171,
         cert. denied, 329 Conn. 905, 184 A.3d 1216 (2018).
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                        Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

       appeal. Although counsel alleged due process violations
       associated with the identification procedure used by
       the police, they did not raise any claim predicated on
       Dickson. This court ultimately affirmed the petitioner’s
       conviction on April 24, 2018. State v. Kukucka, supra,
       356.
          On August 22, 2017, the petitioner filed a petition
       for a writ of habeas corpus. On February 2, 2021, the
       petitioner filed the operative amended petition, which
       asserted three counts. Count one alleged a due process
       violation under Dickson, count two alleged ineffective
       assistance of trial counsel, and count three alleged inef-
       fective assistance of appellate counsel. On March 3,
       2021, the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction,
       filed a return in which he claimed that count one of
       the operative petition was procedurally defaulted
       because the petitioner failed to raise the Dickson claim
       on direct appeal.2 The respondent also relied on the
       fact that Dickson did not apply retroactively. In his reply
       to the return, the petitioner argued that ‘‘[a]ppellate
       counsel’s ineffective assistance of counsel . . . as
       described in count three . . . caused [the] petitioner
       not to raise this claim in his direct appeal,’’ and that
       the timing of Dickson ‘‘caused [the petitioner] to forgo
       a viable suppression motion and appellate claim pursu-
       ant to Dickson in all prior litigation relating to the
       charges and conviction . . . .’’
          On May 16, 2022, a trial on the petitioner’s operative
       amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus was held.
       The court heard testimony from the petitioner, the peti-
       tioner’s criminal trial counsel, and a legal expert. No
       other witnesses were presented. In its October 7, 2022
       memorandum of decision, the court concluded, with
         2
           In his return, the respondent additionally raised the issue of procedural
       default for failure to raise the Dickson claim during trial. However, that
       argument was abandoned in the respondent’s appellate brief.
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                          Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

         respect to the alleged due process violation pursuant
         to Dickson, ‘‘the petitioner alleges ineffective assistance
         of appellate counsel as the cause and prejudice [excus-
         ing procedural default], a claim already alleged in count
         three . . . . The due process claim in count one need
         not be separately addressed because it is subsumed
         within the claim in count three.’’ The court then held
         that the petitioner had failed to prove ineffective assis-
         tance of either trial or appellate counsel. Specifically,
         as to the claim of ineffective assistance of appellate
         counsel, the court stated that ‘‘the petitioner alleges
         that [appellate counsel] failed to: identify, raise, litigate,
         and/or brief a due process claim under State v. Dickson,
         [supra, 322 Conn. 410],’’ yet, ‘‘[n]either appellate counsel
         testified and, therefore, it is unknown how they selected
         issues to raise on appeal. This court must presume in
         the absence of evidence to the contrary that counsel
         were . . . reasonably competent.’’ Accordingly, the
         court denied the amended petition for a writ of habeas
         corpus and thereafter granted the petitioner’s petition
         for certification to appeal. This appeal followed.
            On appeal, the petitioner does not challenge the
         court’s conclusion that he failed to establish ineffective
         assistance of trial or appellate counsel. Rather, the peti-
         tioner claims that the court improperly denied count
         one of his amended petition because the ‘‘court failed
         to realize that the petitioner had pleaded and argued a
         second form of cause and prejudice: the unavailability
         of the legal basis for the claim at the time of [the crimi-
         nal] trial.’’ Second, as to the failure to raise the Dickson
         claim during the direct appeal, the petitioner argues
         that, because Dickson was decided after the direct
         appeal was filed for his criminal conviction, and
         because Dickson implicated a due process violation
         applicable to his case,3 the timing of the release of the
           3
             We do not reach the merits of whether Dickson applies to the petitioner’s
         purported due process claim. We do note, however, that Dickson’s require-
         ment for a prescreening procedure applies to ‘‘in-court identifications that
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                        Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

       Dickson decision independently constituted cause and
       prejudice sufficient to overcome the defense of proce-
       dural default for failing to raise the claim during the
       direct appeal. We are not persuaded.
          As an initial matter, a habeas court’s conclusion that
       a petitioner’s claim is barred by the procedural default
       doctrine involves a question of law over which we exer-
       cise plenary review. See Crawford v. Commissioner of
       Correction, 294 Conn. 165, 174, 982 A.2d 620 (2009);
       McCarthy v. Commissioner of Correction, 192 Conn.
       App. 797, 810, 218 A.3d 638 (2019).
          Under the procedural default doctrine, ‘‘a claimant
       may not raise, in a collateral proceeding, claims that
       he could have made at trial or on direct appeal in the
       original proceeding and that if the state, in response,
       alleges that a claimant should be procedurally defaulted
       from now making the claim, the claimant bears the
       burden of demonstrating good cause for having failed
       to raise the claim directly, and he must show that he
       suffered actual prejudice as a result of this excusable
       failure.’’ Hinds v. Commissioner of Correction, 151
       Conn. App. 837, 852, 97 A.3d 986 (2014), aff’d, 321 Conn.
       56, 136 A.3d 596 (2016). ‘‘Although ineffective assistance
       of counsel . . . is the most commonly asserted basis
       for cause to excuse procedural default . . . it is not
       are not preceded by a successful identification in a nonsuggestive identifica-
       tion procedure . . . .’’ State v. Dickson, supra, 322 Conn. 415. We also note
       that, in resolving the petitioner’s direct appeal, in which he claimed a due
       process violation based on the admission of out-of-court and in-court identifi-
       cation evidence, this court stated that, ‘‘[e]ven if we were to assume that
       the identification procedure was suggestive, we conclude that given the
       public safety concerns and the immediate need to apprehend the assailant,
       the [trial] court properly found that the procedure was necessary due to
       exigent circumstances.’’ State v. Kukucka, supra, 181 Conn. App. 355. More-
       over, after a careful review of the evidence in the record, this court upheld
       the trial court’s determination that the out-of-court identification of the
       petitioner was reliable on the basis of the numerous instances in which the
       witness had observed the petitioner on the day of the incident as well as
       the face-to-face altercation between them. Id., 355–56.
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                      Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

         the exclusive basis.’’ (Citation omitted.) Saunders v.
         Commissioner of Correction, 343 Conn. 1, 26, 272 A.3d
         169 (2022). ‘‘[T]he cause requirement may be satisfied
         under certain circumstances when a procedural failure
         is not attributable to an intentional decision by counsel
         made in pursuit of his client’s interests. . . . [T]he fail-
         ure of counsel to raise a constitutional issue reasonably
         unknown to him is one situation in which the require-
         ment is met.’’ Reed v. Ross, supra, 468 U.S. 14.
            The petitioner is correct insofar that it is possible to
         show cause independent of an ineffective assistance of
         counsel claim. As highlighted in Reed, when a constitu-
         tional issue is not raised by competent counsel because
         it is ‘‘reasonably unknown’’ to counsel, as opposed to
         being an intentional strategic decision to not raise the
         claim, then cause may exist to excuse the procedural
         default. Id. The two issues in this case thus may be
         distilled to whether (1) Dickson may be applied retroac-
         tively to allow a collateral review of claims where judg-
         ment has been rendered and (2) the timing of the Dick-
         son decision—which was officially released after the
         petitioner filed his direct appeal but before any briefs
         were filed and before oral arguments—satisfies the
         cause requirement under Reed because the due process
         claim created by Dickson was ‘‘reasonably unknown’’
         to appellate counsel.
                                        I
           The petitioner claims that Dickson implicates a due
         process claim relevant to his conviction, and, because
         Dickson’s holding did not change the state of the law
         until after his conviction, there is cause and prejudice
         under Reed to excuse the procedural default for failing
         to raise the due process claim during his criminal trial.
         We disagree.
            In Reed, Daniel Ross had been convicted following
         a jury trial in which the court had charged the jury with
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                    Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

       instructions that had been in place for more than 100
       years, and, on appeal, Ross’ attorney did not contest
       the propriety of those instructions. Id., 5–7. Six years
       after the conclusion of Ross’ direct appeal, the United
       States Supreme Court, in Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S.
       684, 95 S. Ct. 1881, 44 L. Ed. 2d 508 (1975), overturned
       its long-standing precedent, effectively ruling that the
       jury instructions that were used during Ross’ trial were
       unconstitutional. See Reed v. Ross, supra, 468 U.S. 3,
       7. ‘‘Two years later, Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432
       U.S. 233, 97 S. Ct. 2339, 53 L. Ed. 2d 306 (1977), held that
       Mullaney was to have retroactive application.’’ Reed v.
       Ross, supra, 3. ‘‘Ross challenged the jury instructions
       for the first time in 1977, shortly after [the United States
       Supreme Court] decided Hankerson.’’ Id., 7. The court
       noted that, prior to Ross’ direct appeal, only two cases
       indirectly departed from the well settled legal precedent
       that the then existing jury instructions were constitu-
       tional. Id., 18–19. The court stated that, ‘‘[b]ecause these
       [two] cases provided only indirect support for Ross’
       claim, and because they were the only cases that would
       have supported Ross’ claim at all, we cannot conclude
       that they provided a reasonable basis upon which Ross
       could have realistically appealed his conviction.’’ Id.,
       19. The court stated that it could ‘‘confidently assume’’
       the reason Ross failed to challenge ‘‘the constitutional-
       ity of [the jury] instructions . . . [on appeal] was
       because they were sanctioned by a century of North
       Carolina law and because Mullaney was yet six years
       away.’’ Id., 7. The court held that ‘‘Ross’ claim was
       sufficiently novel . . . to excuse his attorney’s failure
       to raise the . . . issue’’ during his direct appeal and
       affirmed the decision of the United States Court of
       Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to retroactively apply
       Mullaney to Ross’ claim. Id., 20.
         Relying on Reed, the petitioner argues that the due
       process claim on which he relies—that later became
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                          Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

         available under our Supreme Court’s decision in Dick-
         son—was not legally available to counsel at the time
         of his criminal trial. The petitioner argues that, ‘‘where
         a jurisdiction’s highest court overrules its own prior
         precedent on a constitutional matter, there is cause and
         prejudice to excuse a procedural default.’’ However, in
         Reed, it was not the change in the law contained in
         Mullaney, alone, that permitted Ross to appeal his con-
         viction. It was only after Hankerson, in which the
         United States Supreme Court held that Mullaney could
         be applied retroactively, that Ross was permitted to
         challenge his conviction.
            Our Supreme Court has made it clear that Dickson
         is not to be applied retroactively. The court explicitly
         stated that ‘‘[t]he new rule would not apply . . . on
         collateral review.’’ State v. Dickson, supra, 322 Conn.
         451 n.34; see also Tatum v. Commissioner of Correc-
         tion, 211 Conn. App. 42, 60–61, 272 A.3d 218, cert.
         granted, 343 Conn. 932, 276 A.3d 975 (2022).4 Because
         Dickson may not be applied retroactively on collateral
         review, the petitioner may not challenge his conviction
         on the basis of the new law contained in the Dickson
         decision. Accordingly, the petitioner is unable to rely
         on Dickson to demonstrate cause and prejudice to over-
         come the respondent’s special defense of procedural
         default.
                                              II
           The petitioner nevertheless claims that, because the
         Dickson decision was released while his direct appeal
         was pending, cause and prejudice exists to excuse the
         procedural default for failure to raise the claim during
           4
             We note that the petitioner in Tatum v. Commissioner of Correction,
         supra, 211 Conn. App. 42, has appealed this court’s decision, which is cur-
         rently pending before our Supreme Court. The certified question in that
         case is whether the habeas petition in question was properly dismissed on
         the ground that Dickson ‘‘did not apply retroactively to the petitioner’s case
         on collateral review?’’ Tatum v. Commissioner of Correction, 343 Conn.
         932, 276 A.3d 975 (2022).
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                       Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

       the appeal because the issue was ‘‘reasonably
       unknown’’ and ‘‘sufficiently novel’’ to competent coun-
       sel. We disagree.
          It is undisputed that the petitioner’s case was pending
       on appeal at the time that the Dickson decision was
       released. The court recognized that, ‘‘in pending appeals
       involving this issue, the suggestive in-court identifica-
       tion has already occurred.’’ (Emphasis in original.) State
       v. Dickson, supra, 322 Conn. 452. The court then care-
       fully provided instruction on how to apply the new rule
       to pending appeals in which the issue of suggestive in-
       court identifications has been raised. Id.; see also State
       v. Collymore, 334 Conn. 431, 479, 223 A.3d 1 (‘‘[b]ecause
       . . . it was too late to prescreen first time in-court
       identifications that already occurred in pending cases,
       we provided a road map for how pending appeals should
       be handled’’), cert. denied,       U.S.     , 141 S. Ct. 433,
       208 L. Ed. 2d 129 (2020). This clearly indicates that, in
       its pronouncement that its holding must be applied
       prospectively, the court anticipated the possibility of
       viable Dickson claims arising in cases that were pending
       on appeal at the time that Dickson was released.
       Because the Dickson decision was released while the
       petitioner’s appeal was pending, a Dickson claim was
       neither unknown nor sufficiently novel to excuse the
       petitioner’s procedural default.
         Notwithstanding the clear instructions provided by
       our Supreme Court in Dickson regarding pending
       appeals, the petitioner relies on United States v. Garcia,
       811 Fed. Appx. 472 (10th Cir. 2020), stating in his reply
       brief that the case stands for the premise that ‘‘a change
       in the law that occurs during a proceeding excuses
       default at that same proceeding.’’5 Such a broad reading
         5
           The petitioner also cites a case from the United States District Court
       for the District of Columbia for the same premise. That decision is not
       binding on this court, and we find it unpersuasive because the change in
       law in that case was followed by a subsequent United States Supreme Court
       decision holding that the change was retroactive.
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                            Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

          cannot reasonably be taken from the Garcia decision.
          In Garcia, a change in law took place ‘‘only eighteen
          days before [the] court issued its decision in [Pedro
          Garcia’s] direct appeal . . . .’’ United States v. Garcia,
          supra, 479. However, the court clearly stated that ‘‘the
          source of the constitutional principle relevant to [Gar-
          cia’s argument] is not found in [that case] but in [a
          more recent case], which was decided well after Gar-
          cia’s direct appeal was final. Indeed, given that it is
          [the more recent case] that cements the viability of
          Garcia’s legal theory . . . there is cause to excuse Gar-
          cia from not raising this claim at trial or on direct
          appeal.’’ (Citation omitted; emphasis added.) Id., 480.
             This is clearly in contrast with the present case. In
          Dickson, our Supreme Court accounted for how poten-
          tial Dickson claims can be viably raised in pending
             The petitioner in Sorto v. United States, Docket No. 08-167-4 (RJL) (D.
          D.C. February 24, 2022), appealed from his judgment of conviction rendered
          in a consolidated appeal with his codefendants, with briefs filed on May 16,
          2014, and March 3, 2015. The subsequent decision affirming the convictions
          was issued on November 24, 2015. See United States v. Cordova, 806 F.3d
          1085 (D.C. Cir. 2015) and related filings. On June 26, 2015, nearly five months
          before Melvin Sorto’s direct appeal was affirmed, the United States Supreme
          Court decided Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 135 S. Ct. 2551, 192
          L. Ed. 2d 569 (2015), which adopted a new constitutional rule relevant to
          Sorto’s conviction and appeal. Id.; Sorto v. United States, supra. The District
          Court ultimately found cause to excuse Sorto’s procedural default. Id.
             In the present case, the petitioner asserts that ‘‘Johnson constituted cause
          for the procedural default’’ for Sorto ‘‘not rais[ing] a Johnson issue on direct
          appeal . . . .’’ The petitioner fails to acknowledge, however, that ‘‘Sorto’s
          argument was based on two Supreme Court decisions.’’ (Emphasis added.)
          Sorto v. United States, supra, United States District Court, Docket No. 08-
          167-4. The second case, Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. 120, 136 S. Ct. 1257,
          194 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2016), was decided on April 18, 2016, almost five months
          after Sorto’s conviction was affirmed on direct appeal. ‘‘[I]n Welch v. United
          States, the Supreme Court held . . . that Johnson announced a substantive
          rule that has retroactive effect in cases on collateral review.’’ (Internal
          quotation marks omitted.) Sorto v. United States, supra. It was only after
          Welch was decided that Johnson was applied retroactively on collateral
          review of Sorto’s conviction. Thus, Johnson on its own did not establish
          an independent basis to excuse Sorto’s procedural default. Sorto is therefore
          inapposite to the present case.
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                    Kukucka v. Commissioner of Correction

       appeals. Moreover, Dickson was decided after the direct
       appeal was filed, but three months before the petition-
       er’s first brief was filed, eleven months before the peti-
       tioner’s reply brief was filed, fourteen months before
       oral arguments, and more than one and one-half years
       before the petitioner’s direct appeal was affirmed. For
       that reason, the assertion that the constitutional issue
       contained in Dickson was ‘‘reasonably unknown’’ and
       ‘‘sufficiently novel’’ to competent counsel during the
       petitioner’s direct appeal is untenable. Even if we were
       to assume that the petitioner’s appellate counsel would
       have considered a Dickson claim strategically advanta-
       geous, he had ample time to raise it between August
       9, 2016, when the Dickson decision was released, and
       April 24, 2018, when the petitioner’s direct appeal was
       affirmed. See State v. Dickson, supra, 322 Conn. 410;
       State v. Kukucka, supra, 181 Conn. App. 329.
          Mindful of the clear instructions contained in the
       Dickson decision indicating that such claims could be
       raised and litigated in those cases in which appeals
       were pending, it bears repeating that the petitioner does
       not challenge the habeas court’s adverse ruling on his
       claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. In
       the absence of evidence to the contrary, this court must
       presume that appellate counsel made a tactical decision
       in deciding to forgo a Dickson claim during the direct
       appeal. ‘‘[C]ounsel may not make a tactical decision to
       forgo a procedural opportunity . . . to raise an issue
       on appeal . . . and then, when he discovers that the
       tactic has been unsuccessful, pursue an alternative
       strategy . . . . Procedural defaults of this nature are,
       therefore, ‘inexcusable’ . . . and cannot qualify as
       ‘cause’ for purposes of . . . habeas corpus review.’’
       (Citation omitted.) Reed v. Ross, supra, 468 U.S. 14. We
       therefore conclude that the court properly denied the
       petitioner’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
         The judgment is affirmed.
         In this decision the other judges concurred.