State v. Haughey

Citations

• 235 Conn. App. 758

Syllabus

The defendant, who previously had been convicted of the crimes of murder, felony murder and capital felony, appealed from the trial court's dismissal of his motion for sentence modification. The defendant claimed that the court erred in determining that his sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release was a mandatory minimum sentence that the court was precluded from modifying pursuant to statute (§ 53a-39 (d)). Held: The trial court correctly determined that § 53a-39 (d) precluded the modifica- tion of the defendant's sentence, as a definite sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release required to be imposed pursuant to the capital felony statute (§ 53a-35a (1) (A)) operated as a mandatory minimum sentence, despite the absence of the phrases ''mandatory minimum'' or ''may not be suspended or reduced,'' and § 53a-39 (a) did not offer any express terms or criteria that would have allowed the court to modify that sentence. The trial court improperly dismissed the defendant's motion for sentence modification on the ground that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction, as the limitation set forth in § 53a-39 (d) operated to limit the court's authority to modify the defendant's sentence but did not affect the court's subject matter jurisdiction, and, accordingly, the court should have denied the motion. Argued September 3—officially released October 14, 2025