Title: Bowens v. Commissioner of Correction (Concurrence and Dissent)
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC20204
State: Connecticut
Issuer: Connecticut Supreme Court
Date: October 22, 2019

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BOWENS v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION—CONCURRENCE AND
DISSENT
ECKER, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with and join parts I, II, and III of the majority
opinion. I respectfully dissent, however, from part IV
of the majority opinion, in which the majority concludes
that, even if the cruel and unusual punishment claims
raised by the petitioner, Tyreese Bowens, are not barred
by the doctrine of res judicata, he cannot prevail on
those claims in light of this court’s recent decisions in
State v. McCleese, 333 Conn. 378,
A.3d
(2019),
and State v. Williams-Bey, 333 Conn. 468,
A.3d
(2019). For the reasons articulated in my dissenting
opinions in those cases, I believe that juvenile offenders
cannot constitutionally be sentenced as adults without
an individualized sentencing proceeding in which the
sentencing judge must consider the mitigating effects
of youth and its associated features, and also that the
availability of parole eligibility under § 1 of No. 15-84
of the 2015 Public Acts, codified at General Statutes
§ 54-125a, is not a substitute for such an individualized
sentencing hearing. See State v. McCleese, supra, 429
(Ecker, J., dissenting); State v. Williams-Bey, supra,
477 (Ecker, J., dissenting); see also State v. Taylor G.,
315 Conn. 734, 796–97, 110 A.3d 338 (2015) (Eveleigh,
J., dissenting).