Francis v. Board of Pardons & Paroles

Citations

• 338 Conn. 347

Syllabus

Pursuant to statute (§ 54-125g), ''any person who has six months or less to the expiration of the maximum term or terms for which such person was sentenced'' is eligible ''to go at large on parole . . . after having served ninety-five per cent of the definite sentence imposed.'' The plaintiff, who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment in 1992, sought a judgment declaring, inter alia, that § 54-125g applies to prisoners, like himself, who have been convicted of murder and that the defendants, the Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Commissioner of Correction, must consider his eligibility for early parole in calculating his estimated date of release from prison. The commissioner projected that, after applying certain statutory (§§ 18- 7a and 18-98a) credits that the plaintiff had earned toward the reduction of his sentence, the plaintiff's maximum release date would be in 2027. The defendants argued that the plaintiff's action was not ripe because the term ''definite sentence,'' as used in § 54-125g, refers to the full sentence imposed by the trial court, not the sentence an inmate will actually serve, and because, after applying the statutory credits that he has earned and will continue to earn, the plaintiff had not yet served, and almost certainly never would serve, 95 percent of his fifty year sentence. The defendants further argued that, even if the term ''definite sentence'' refers to an inmate's sentence as reduced by the credits he has earned, the plaintiff's action still was not ripe because he would not serve 95 percent of his sentence, as reduced by the credits he has earned, until 2024. The trial court assumed that § 54-125g applied to the plaintiff and that the term ''definite sentence'' means the sentence an inmate will actually serve. Nevertheless, the trial court concluded, in light of its assumptions, that the plaintiff's action was not ripe because he would not be eligible for parole until 2024, at the very earlies