Opinion
FBTCR980141291 FBTCR990148153 FBTCR990148154.
12-24-2012
STATE of Connecticut v. Isaac EAGLES.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
ROBERT J. DEVLIN, JR., Judge.
In this case, the defendant disputes the manner in which the Connecticut Department of Correction (DOC) has applied pretrial jail confinement credits to his sentences. In the present motion, the defendant seeks to have this court issue a revised mittimus directing the DOC to award jail credit on all of his sentences from April 5, 1999 forward. The state objects to the motion asserting that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate the motion and that the motion lacks substantive merit.
Because this court lacks jurisdiction to consider the defendant's claim, the motion must be dismissed.
BACKGROUND
On April 5, 1999, the defendant was arraigned on three cases:
1. CR98-0141291: defendant charged with weapons offenses and failure to appear in court (hereinafter " weapons case")
2. CR99-0148153: defendant charged with robbery in the first degree (hereinafter " robbery case")
3. CR99-0148154: defendant charged with attempted murder (hereinafter " attempted murder" case)
Since April 5, 1999, the defendant has been continuously in the custody of the DOC on these cases.
The weapons case was prosecuted in geographical area court in Bridgeport (GA2). On September 16, 1999, the defendant pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle (General Statutes § 29-38) and received a sentence of four years execution suspended after two years with three years probation.
The robbery case and attempted murder case were transferred to the Judicial District court. These cases were joined for trial and on July 13, 2000 a jury found the defendant guilty as charged. Thereafter on September 8, 2000, the trial court (Ford, J.) (for both cases) imposed a total effective sentence of thirty years execution suspended after eighteen years with five years probation.
Although it is not completely clear from the pleadings, it appears that the DOC in calculating the defendant's sentences applied all of the jail credit from April 5, 1999 to September 8, 2000 to the GA2 weapons case. It is this jail credit that the defendant now seeks to be applied to the robbery case and attempted murder case sentences imposed by Judge Ford.
DISCUSSION
The defendant asserts that the sentence as calculated by the DOC should be corrected pursuant to a motion to correct illegal sentence. See Practice Book § 43-22 (" The judicial authority may at any time correct an illegal sentence ... or it may correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner ..."). Such a motion is a narrow exception to the general rule that, once a defendant's sentence has begun, the authority of the sentencing court to modify the sentence terminates. State v. Clark, 136 Conn.App. 421, 424-25 (2012).
In State v. Carmona, 104 Conn.App. 828, 833 (2007), our Appellate Court ruled that a sentencing court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a motion to correct illegal sentence where the defendant's attack is not directed at the legality of the sentence imposed by the court but rather at the legality of the sentence as calculated by the DOC. Id.
The Carmona case involved the same sort of jail credit application issues as raised by the defendant in the present case. Accordingly, as in Carmona, this court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate the defendant's claim and the motion must be dismissed.
Motion dismissed.
So Ordered.