Boria v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 345 Conn. 39

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of robbery in the first degree, filed a successive habeas petition, claiming, inter alia, that certain statutory (§§ 18-98e and 54-125a) amendments to the law governing the earned risk reduction credit violated the ex post facto clause of the United States constitution and that his guilty plea was not voluntary. The habeas court, sua sponte and without providing the petitioner with prior notice or an opportunity to be heard, dismissed the petition pursuant to the rules of practice (§ 23-29 (1) and (3)), concluding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the petitioner's ex post facto claim and that the remaining claims were repetitious of claims that the petitioner had brought in prior habeas petitions. On the granting of certification, the petitioner appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the habeas court's judgment. Thereafter, the petitioner, on the granting of certifica- tion, appealed to this court, claiming that the habeas court improperly had dismissed his petition under § 23-29 without first providing him with prior notice and an opportunity to be heard. Held that the Appellate Court improperly upheld the habeas court's judgment dismissing the petition under Practice Book § 23-29, and, accordingly, this court reversed the Appellate Court's judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings: Because the issues raised by the parties and the merits of the underlying arguments presented on appeal were identical to those in the companion 40 OCTOBER, 2022 345 Conn. 39 Boria v. Commissioner of Correction case of Brown v. Commissioner of Correction (345 Conn. 1), this court's reasoning and conclusions in Brown controlled the present case. Insofar as the habeas court failed to first determine whether any grounds existed for it to decline to issue the writ of habeas corpus after consider- ation of the criteria set forth in the rule of practice (§ 23-24) governing the issuance of such writs, the case was reman