State v. Omar

Citations

• 209 Conn. App. 283

Syllabus

The defendant, who previously had been convicted of various drug related offenses, appealed to this court following the trial court's denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence. In 2016, after the defendant had provided information to the state in connection with another case, the trial court granted the defendant's application for sentence modification, reducing his sentence to eight years of incarceration followed by five years of special parole. In 2018, our legislature enacted a public act (P.A. 18-63), which amended certain statutes (§§ 53a-28 (b) and 54-125e (b)) to eliminate special parole as a punishment for certain drug related offenses, including those for which the defendant had been convicted and sentenced, and to require that the trial court make certain determina- tions prior to the imposition of a period of special parole. Thereafter, the defendant filed a motion to correct his sentence, requesting that his term of special parole be eliminated. The trial court denied the motion, stating that the amendments to §§ 53a-28 (b) and 54-125e (b) required by P.A. 18-63 did not apply retroactively, and the defendant appealed to this court. Held that the trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence: contrary to the defendant's claim, State v. Nathaniel S. (323 Conn. 290) did not control this court's retroac- tivity analysis because our Supreme Court found that the juvenile trans- fer statute at issue in that case was automatic and, by its nature, proce- dural, permitting the amendment to that statute to be applied retroactively, whereas the special parole punishment at issue in the present case was not automatic, rather, prior to the enactment of P.A. 18-63, choosing to impose it was an act of judicial discretion; moreover, in accordance with State v. Bischoff (337 Conn. 739) and State v. Kalil (314 Conn. 529), certain statutes (§§ 54-194 and 1-1 (t)), which create the presumption that changes to criminal statutes p