## Facts

- Santos Miranda lived with his teenage girlfriend and her two young children and acted in a parental-type role, though he was not the children’s legal parent.
- The girlfriend’s infant daughter suffered severe and repeated injuries, including fractures and hemorrhaging, inflicted by the child’s mother.
- The state prosecuted Miranda on an omission theory, alleging he failed to protect the child and thereby committed two counts of first-degree assault under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-59(a)(3) and one count of risk of injury to a child under former § 53-21.
- After prior appeals and a remand, Miranda was resentenced to an aggregate 30-year term.
- The resentencing was conducted by the original trial judge after the judge’s retirement and designation as a judge trial referee.

## Issues

1. Whether the judge trial referee had statutory authority to conduct Miranda’s resentencing.
2. Whether the 30-year sentence was an abuse of discretion, including in light of the victim’s mother receiving a more lenient sentence in her separate case.
3. Whether the court should reconsider and reverse its earlier holding allowing first-degree assault liability under § 53a-59(a)(3) based solely on Miranda’s failure to protect the child from the mother’s abuse.

## Decision

- The court rejected Miranda’s challenge to the judge trial referee’s authority and held the referee was statutorily authorized to resentence him.
- The court reconsidered and overruled its earlier interpretation permitting omission-based liability under § 53a-59(a)(3) on the theory used in the case.
- The court reversed Miranda’s convictions on the two counts of first-degree assault under § 53a-59(a)(3).
- The court remanded with instructions to dismiss the assault counts and to resentence Miranda solely on the remaining risk-of-injury conviction consistent with the prior remand.
- Because the assault counts were vacated, the resentencing order effectively displaced the challenge to the aggregate 30-year sentence as imposed for the invalidated assault convictions.

## Legal Principles

- A properly designated judge trial referee may exercise judicial authority to conduct resentencing when authorized by statute and assignment.
- First-degree assault under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-59(a)(3), as construed here, does not extend to the omission-based failure-to-protect theory applied to a nonparental cohabitant on this record.
- Criminal omission liability may exist when a legal duty to act is recognized, but that duty does not automatically transform a failure to act into liability for all commission-oriented offenses; statutory text and structure control.
- A risk-of-injury-to-a-child conviction may be sustained on a caretaker’s failure to protect when a duty of care is established, even if assault convictions premised on the same omission theory are not.
- Sentencing is generally committed to trial court discretion within statutory limits; disparity between related defendants’ sentences does not alone establish an abuse of discretion.

## Conclusion

The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the resentencing judge trial referee’s authority but overruled its earlier decision permitting omission-based first-degree assault liability under § 53a-59(a)(3), reversed and ordered dismissal of the assault counts, and remanded for resentencing on the remaining risk-of-injury conviction.


State v. Miranda, 274 Conn. 727, 878 A.2d 1118 (Conn. 2005)