State v. Pierre

Syllabus

Convicted, inter alia, of the crimes of manslaughter in the first degree, felony murder and two counts of kidnapping in the first degree in violation of statute (§ 53a-92 (a) (2) (A) and (B)), the defendant appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying his motion to correct an illegal sentence. The sentencing court had merged the defendant's manslaughter conviction into the felony murder conviction and sen- tenced him to sixty years of incarceration on the felony murder convic- tion. The court also sentenced the defendant to twenty-five years of incarceration on each of the two counts of kidnapping. In his motion to correct, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy was violated because, under a retro- active application of State v. Polanco (308 Conn. 242), the sentencing court incorrectly merged the felony murder and manslaughter convic- tions instead of vacating the manslaughter conviction. He further claimed that he was unlawfully convicted of and sentenced on the two kidnapping counts because each count arose out of the same act or transaction, and the trial court improperly failed to vacate one of the kidnapping convictions. Held that the trial court improperly denied the defendant's motion to correct an illegal sentence as to his challenge to the court's failure to vacate the manslaughter conviction, and, because the form of the court's judgment was improper, its judgment was reversed as to that claim and the case was remanded with direction to dismiss the motion to correct as to that claim: the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the defendant's claim that the manslaughter conviction should have been vacated, as he did not assert that his sentence was affected by his conviction of the felony murder and manslaughter charges, he was not sentenced on the merged manslaughter conviction, and the only relief he sought in his motion to correct was the vacatur of the manslaughter conviction;