Court Opinion

ID: 9767258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:14:25.32462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:29.860799
License: Public Domain

*344Shea, J.
(concurring). I agree with the result and the essential holding of the court that the absence of any provision for a hearing to afford an opportunity for a defendant to contest a recommendation against commitment at the Whiting Forensic Institute in the report of the examining psychiatrists made pursuant to General Statutes § 17-244 does not violate any constitutional right. Since General Statutes §17-245 (b) makes a recommendation for confinement at the institute a prerequisite for a commitment there, the denial of the defendant’s request for a continuance to bring in the examining psychiatrists for the purpose of disputing their recommendation was not an abuse of discretion.
I disagree, however, with the portion of the court’s opinion which indicates that Practice Book § 934 rather than Practice Book § 935 provides the appropriate vehicle for remedying a deficiency in the sentence which has been imposed. Section 935 is not limited to the correction of an “illegal sentence or other illegal disposition,” as the court assumes, but also authorizes correction within'ninety days of sentences or other dispositions “imposed in an illegal manner.” Practice Book § 935. The claim of error based upon the denial of the defendant’s request for a continuance is essentially a claim that the sentence was “imposed in an illegal manner” by virtue of a procedural impropriety and is plainly cognizable under § 935. The nonconformity of the report with the requirements of § 17-244 (d), which the defendant also relied upon, was also a claimed violation of a sentencing procedure requirement and would qualify for consideration under § 935. Because the deficiencies in the report were not raised at the sentencing hearing, however, the defendant must be deemed to have waived them and the court did not err in refusing to open the judgment when the defendant later called them to its attention.
*345As both grounds upon which the defendant seeks relief in this appeal may be regarded as asserting that the sentence was “imposed in an illegal manner,” § 935 was clearly applicable. I have no overwhelming concern about the pristine integrity of the rules of practice, but I am disturbed by the precedent being set in using the “good cause” standard for modification of a sentence in § 934 to attack the legality of a sentence. Section 934 allows modification of a sentence only by reducing it or ordering the defendant discharged or released on probation or on a conditional discharge. It presupposes a valid sentence to be modified. Unlike § 935, which requires any sentence correction to be made within ninety days, a limitation which the defendant in this case has met, § 934 allows modification at “any time during the period of a definite sentence.” To allow § 934 to be employed for the purpose of considering claims which are cognizable under § 935 defeats the purpose of the provision limiting the time for seeking correction of a sentence alleged to be illegal. In my view, we have no need for this new avenue of post-conviction attacks upon judgments in addition to the right of appeal and the habeas corpus remedy.