Opinion ID: 2079135
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: sentence review act

Text: In 1956, in response to a major uprising at the State Prison at Wethersfield, Governor Ribicoff appointed a Prison Study Committee to investigate the reasons for the prisoner unrest and to propose legislation to remedy legitimate prisoner grievances. Samuelson, Sentence Review and Sentence Disparity; A Case Study of the Connecticut Sentence Review Division, 10 Conn. L. Rev. 5 (1977). The study committee found that the major complaint of prisoners was the inequitable distribution of penalties imposed on similar offenders for similar offenses and the unavailability of a practicable review of excessive sentences. First Interim Report of the Governor's Prison Study Committee (November 19, 1956), Hearings Before Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary and Governmental Functions, Pt. 2, 1957 Sess., p. 377, on H.B. 276. The two potential avenues for relief, namely, the board of pardons and the Supreme Court were found to be closed or virtually so as a practical matter. The board of pardons was of little avail because as a matter of policy except in rare instances the minimum of an indeterminate sentence would not be commuted until the prisoner had served a substantial period of the sentence. Appeal to this court was equally fruitless because so long as the sentence was within the statutory limits an appeal challenging a sentence as excessive was nothing more than an appeal for clemency and a request that we exercise a discretionary authority that we do not possess. State v. LaPorta, 140 Conn. 610, 612, 102 A.2d 885 (1954); State v. Horton, 132 Conn. 276, 278, 43 A.2d 744 (1945). Of three possible solutions [1] considered, the study committee recommended a review division of trial court judges patterned after a statute adopted in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mass. Ann. Laws, ch. 278, §§ 2828D (1943). In 1957 the legislature adopted a sentence review bill; Public Acts 1957, No. 436; General Statutes §§ 51-194 through 51-197; modeled substantially after the recommendations of the Prison Study Committee.
The act establishes a sentence review division consisting of three Superior Court judges appointed by the chief justice. General Statutes § 51-194. Any person receiving a nonmandatory sentence of confinement for one year or more may apply for review of sentence. General Statutes § 51-195. [2] On review of the original sentence the division is authorized to let the original sentence stand, to increase or decrease it or may order such different sentence to be imposed as could have been imposed at the time of the original sentence. General Statutes § 51-196. [3] We have held that such increased sentances do not violate the double jeopardy provision of the federal constitution or the similar common-law rule as embodied in the due process provision, article first, § 9, of the state constitution. Kohlfuss v. Warden, 149 Conn. 692, 695, 183 A.2d 626, cert. denied, 371 U.S. 928, 83 S. Ct. 298, 9 L. Ed.2d 235 (1962). If a different sentence or disposition is ordered the appropriate trial court is mandated to resentence the defendant as ordered by the review division. The decision of the review division is declared to be final and no appeal from its decision is provided. United States ex rel. Kohlfuss v. Reincke, supra. The purpose and effect of the Sentence Review Act is to afford a convicted person a limited appeal for reconsideration of his sentence. State v. Langley, 156 Conn. 598, 602, 244 A.2d 366 (1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1069, 89 S. Ct. 726, 21 L. Ed.2d 712 (1969); Kohlfuss v. Warden, supra, 697. It thus gives him an optional de novo hearing as to the punishment to be imposed. Consiglio v. Warden, 153 Conn. 673, 676-77, 220 A.2d 269 (1966). It meets the complaints that gave birth to the Sentence Review Act by providing a judicial body with discretionary authority to review prison sentences.