182 CONN 419 - State v. Washington

How this case has been cited

Cited by 116 later decisions — most recently June 2014 · most notably State v. Golding (1989), State v. Newsome (1996)

2 federal appellate · 114 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

Bogdanski, J.

¶1(concurring). On July 1, 1980, this court ordered a new trial for the defendant on the basis of a statutory violation. This court has on numerous occasions espoused the principle that *430the court will not pass upon a constitutional question if there is present some other ground upon which the case may be decided. State v. Gold, 180 Conn. 619, 639-40, 430 A.2d 501, cert. denied, 449 U.S. 920, 101 S. Ct. 320, 66 L. Ed. 2d 148 (1980); Negron v. Warden, 180 Conn. 153, 166-67, 429 A.2d 841 (1980). This is a fundamental principle of constitutional law. Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 347, 56 S. Ct. 466, 80 L. Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring), reh. denied, 297 U.S. 728, 56 S. Ct. 588, 80 L. Ed. 1011 (1936).

¶2Moreover, no reason for changing the law has been indicated. While this court should not hesitate to overrule outmoded principles, the doctrine of stare decisis requires that we rule according to precedent until there is good reason to change the law. Herald Publishing Co. v. Bill, 142 Conn. 53, 62, 111 A.2d 4 (1955).