Court Opinion

ID: 9649803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:09:50.909522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:15.061473
License: Public Domain

House, C. J.
(dissenting). I do not agree with the conclusion that an inmate serving a life sentence is entitled to credit under the provisions of § 18-97 of the General Statutes for any days spent in custody before trial. Rather, I would follow the reasoning expressed by the Superior Court in Kimbro v. Manson, 30 Conn. Sup. 20, 295 A.2d 569, and the “ ‘well-settled principle of construction that specific terms covering the given subject matter will prevail over general language of the same or another statute which might otherwise prove controlling.’ Kepner v. United States, 195 U.S. 100, 125, 24 S. Ct. 797, 49 L. Ed. 114.” Charlton Press, Inc. v. Sullivan, 153 Conn. 103, 110, 214 A.2d 354. My conclusion is buttressed by the fact that § 18-97, of general *395application, was adopted as § 1 of the 1969 Public Acts, No. 735, and thereafter, as § 30 of the 1973 Public Acts, No. 73-116, the General Assembly reenacted the specific provision now contained in § 54-125 of the General Statutes that “[a]ny person confined in the Connecticut Correctional Institution, Somers ... if sentenced for life, after having been in confinement under such sentence for not less than twenty-five years, less such time, not exceeding a total of five years, as may have been earned under the provisions of section 18-7, may be allowed to go at large on parole in the discretion of the panel of the board of parole.”
To allow an inmate serving a life term credit in excess of the time earned for good behavior runs directly counter to the repeated and latest specific expression of the legislative intent that in the absence of action by the board of pardons such an inmate must serve a minimum of twenty-five years less only good behavior time in a maximum amount of five years.