Vazquez v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 232 Conn. App. 244

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted of crimes he committed in 2005, including conspiracy to commit murder, appealed following the denial of his petition for certification to appeal from the habeas court's judgment dismissing his habeas petition. The petitioner claimed that the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, had misinterpreted and misapplied certain 2013 amendments to the statute (§ 54-125a) pertaining to parole eligibility hearings, as set forth in Nos. 13-3 and 13-247 of the 2013 Public Acts (P.A. 13-3 and P.A. 13-247), which made parole eligibility hearings discretionary rather than mandatory and eliminated the application of risk reduction credits pursuant to statute (§ 18-98e) to advance the parole eligibility date of inmates convicted of certain violent crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder. Held: The habeas court did not abuse its discretion in denying the petitioner certification to appeal, as he failed to show that his claims involved issues that were debatable among jurists of reason, that a court could resolve them in a different manner or that they were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further. The habeas court did not commit clear error, as the petitioner claimed, when it adopted a prior habeas court's finding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over his habeas petition and that he had failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted, as the commencement of his probationary period in 2021 did not render his petition or the present appeal moot, and had no bearing on the propriety of the court's judgment, which was not based on mootness. The habeas court correctly concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdic- tion over the petitioner's due process and state liberty interest claims, as he did not have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in earned risk reduction credits or in having such credits applied to further his parole eligibility date under §§ 18-98e and 54-125a, and the respondent's dec