Kobza v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 204 Conn. App. 547

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted on a plea of guilty to the crime of felony murder, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his sentence was illegal because the Department of Correction improperly failed to calculate certain job credits that amounted to a reduction of sixty-three days in his sentence. The petitioner alleged that he had had a seven day job that allowed him to earn one day off his sentence for every week he worked while he was incarcerated in Connecticut but that the sixty- three days in sentence reduction he claimed to have earned were taken away from him when he was transferred to a correctional facility in Virginia. The habeas court, without prior notice to the petitioner or a hearing, sua sponte rendered judgment dismissing his habeas petition pursuant to the applicable rule of practice (§ 23-29), concluding that the court lacked jurisdiction because there was no cognizable liberty interest in prison jobs or credits that have not yet been applied to a sentence. The court thereafter denied the petitioner certification to appeal, and the petitioner appealed to this court. Held: 1. The habeas court abused its discretion in denying the petitioner certifica- tion to appeal from the dismissal of his habeas petition, the court having erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction over the petitioner's job credits claim as pleaded. 2. The habeas court erred as a matter of law when it dismissed the habeas petition for lack of jurisdiction: the court improperly concluded that it lacked jurisdiction because no cognizable liberty interest existed in prison employment or credits that have not been applied to a sentence, the petitioner's claim having been that his job credits were earned and credited but then removed without due process, and the court misconstrued the job credits claim as having asserted that the petitioner was denied the right to receive those credits while he was incarcerated in Virginia; moreover, contrary to the claim by the re