Argued
January 17, 2019
Procedural
History
Amended
petition for a writ of habeas corpus, brought to the Superior
Court in the judicial district of Tolland, where the court,
Sferrazza, J., denied the petitioner's
motion for summary judgment, granted the respondent's
motion for summary judgment and rendered judgment denying the
petition, from which the petitioner, on the granting of
certification, appealed.
John
C. Drapp III, assigned counsel, for the appellant
(petitioner).
Matthew A. Weiner, assistant state's attorney, with whom,
on the brief, were John C. Smriga, state's attorney, and
Emily D. Trudeau, assistant state's attorney, for the
appellee (respondent).
Robinson, C. J., and Palmer, McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins,
Kahn and Ecker, Js.
OPINION
KAHN,
J.
The
issue presented in this appeal[1] is whether the transfer
of a fourteen year old defendant's case to the regular
criminal docket and his subsequent sentence of forty years
imprisonment violate the prohibition against cruel and
unusual punishment enshrined in the dual due process
provisions of the constitution of Connecticut, article first,
§§ 8 and 9. The petitioner, Timothy Griffin,
appeals from the judgment of the habeas court rendered in
favor of the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction. The
petitioner argues that Connecticut's
‘‘standards of decency'' regarding
acceptable punishments for children who engage in criminal
conduct have evolved. That evolution, the petitioner
contends, has rendered both the transfer of a fourteen year
old defendant's case to the regular criminal docket and
the resultant sentencing as an adult unconstitutional, in
violation of the state prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishment.[2] The respondent claims that, because
recent statutory modifications to the juvenile justice system
do not reflect changes in contemporary standards of decency,
the habeas court properly granted the respondent's motion
for summary judgment. The respondent specifically cites to
No. 15-183 of the 2015 Public Acts (P.A. 15-183), which,
inter alia, raised to fifteen years the age of a child whose
case is subject to transfer to the regular criminal docket
from the docket for juvenile matters, and to No. 15-84 of the
2015 Public Acts (P.A. 15-84), which makes certain
individuals eligible for parole. We agree that recent
statutory changes to the juvenile justice system-which
significantly limit, but do not entirely prohibit, the
transfer of a fourteen year old defendant's case to the
regular criminal docket-do not evidence a change in
contemporary standards of decency for purposes of the
constitutional claim raised by the petitioner in the present
case. We also conclude that, because the petitioner is
eligible for parole pursuant to P.A. 15-84, his forty year
sentence complies with established constitutional safeguards.
Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the habeas court.
The
record reveals the following relevant facts and procedural
history. In December, 1997, the then fourteen year old
petitioner was arrested in connection with the murder of a
grocery store owner during an armed robbery. The petitioner
and an accomplice donned masks and entered the grocery store,
where the petitioner shot and killed the store owner. The
perpetrators then emptied the cash register and fled.
Afterward, the petitioner ‘‘bragg[ed] about
shooting the owner of the store . . . .'' At the time
of the crime, the petitioner had been removed from the normal
school curriculum, placed on juvenile probation, and required
to wear an electronic bracelet to monitor his location
because, allegedly, he had assaulted a teacher. The
petitioner's case was automatically transferred to the
regular criminal docket pursuant to General Statutes (Rev. to
1997) § 46b-127 (a). In 1999, he entered open guilty
pleas to felony murder in violation of General Statutes (Rev.
to 1997) § 53a-54c and conspiracy to commit robbery in
the first degree in violation of General Statutes
§§ 53a-48 and 53a-134 (a) (2). He received a total
effective sentence of forty years imprisonment. At that time,
the petitioner was not granted the possibility of eligibility
for parole.
In the
petitioner's first habeas action in 2007, the habeas
court found that the petitioner failed to prove that his
pleas had not been entered knowingly, intelligently and
voluntarily but rendered judgment in his favor on his claim
of ineffective assistance of counsel and restored his right
to file for sentence review. In a per curiam decision, this
court affirmed the judgment of the habeas court. Griffin
v. Commissioner of Correction, 292 Conn. 591, 597, 973
A.2d 1271 (2009). Subsequently, upon the petitioner's
application for review, the Sentence Review Division of the
Superior Court found that the sentence imposed was
‘‘neither inappropriate [nor]
disproportionate.'' State v. Griffin, Docket
No. CR-97-135279, 2010 WL 1794692, *2 (Conn. Super. February
23, 2010).
After
filing and then withdrawing a second habeas petition, the
petitioner filed the petition for a writ of habeas corpus
that is the subject of this appeal.[3] The parties filed cross
motions for summary judgment, and the habeas court granted
the respondent's motion.[4] The habeas court then
granted the petitioner's petition for certification to
appeal in September, 2017. See General Statutes § 52-470
(g). This appeal followed.
This
appeal presents issues of constitutional interpretation and
statutory construction, which are matters of law subject to
our plenary review. See, e.g., General Statutes § 1-2z;
Tannone v. Amica Mutual Ins. Co., 329 Conn. 665,
671, 189 A.3d 99 (2018); Honulik v. Greenwich, 293
Conn. 698, 710, 980 A.2d 880 (2009). Summary judgment shall
be granted if, viewing the evidence in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue
as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law. See Practice Book § 17-49;
see also Rodriguez v. Testa, 296 Conn. 1, 6-7, 993
A.2d 955 (2010). The party moving for summary judgment has
the burden of showing the absence of any genuine issue of
material fact. See, e.g., Rodriguez v. Testa, supra,
6-7.
I
We
first consider whether the passage of P.A. 15-183 establishes
that contemporary standards of decency have evolved, such
that it is unconstitutional to transfer the case of a
fourteen year old defendant from the docket for juvenile
matters to the regular criminal docket under any set of
circumstances. In advancing this claim, the petitioner
effectively asks this court to apply P.A. 15-183
retroactively to all persons currently serving an adult
length sentence for a crime committed at fourteen years of
age. We decline to do so.
In
2015, the legislature passed P.A. 15-183, which, among other
things, as a general rule, raised the age of a child whose
case can be transferred from the docket for juvenile matters
to the regular criminal docket from fourteen years to fifteen
years. See General Statutes § 46b-127 (a). Shortly
thereafter, this court concluded that P.A. 15-183 applied
retroactively to pending cases. See State v. Nathaniel
S., 323 Conn. 290, 292-93, 146 A.3d 988 (2016). We
explicitly stated, however, that P.A. 15-183 did not apply to
cases that had reached final judgment, concluding that
‘‘we perceive no absurdity in the fact that
retroactive application of the act will affect pending cases
but not those that already have reached a final judgment, as
this will be true of most retroactive amendments to
procedural rules.'' Id., 300. That conclusion, of
course, would apply in the context of a habeas petition,
which collaterally attacks a final judgment.
At
about the same time as the enactment of P.A. 15-183 and our
conclusion in Nathaniel S., we held, in a death
penalty case, that a statute could apply retroactively-even
to cases that had reached final judgment- if society's
standards of decency had evolved so that a previously
constitutionally valid criminal punishment now violated the
state constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual
punishment. See State v. Santiago, 318 Conn. 1,
118-19, 139-40, 122 A.3d 1 (2015). In Santiago, the
defendant was found guilty of capital felony for a murder
committed in December, 2000, and was sentenced to death. Id.,
10-11. During the appeals process, our legislature passed No.
12-5 of the 2012 Public Acts (P.A. 12-5), which prospectively
banned the death penalty in all cases. See General Statutes
§§ 53a-35a, 53a-45, 53a-46a, 53a-46b and 53a-54a;
State v. Santiago, supra, 11-12. The defendant
sought review of whether, ‘‘although his crimes
were committed prior to the effective date of [P.A. 12-5],
that legislation nevertheless represent[ed] a fundamental
change in the contemporary standard[s] of decency in
Connecticut . . . rendering the death penalty now cruel and
unusual punishment . . . .'' (Internal quotation
marks omitted.) State v. Santiago, supra, 12. In
light of the passage of P.A. 12-5, this court reexamined the
constitutionality of the death penalty pursuant to the state
constitution, focusing on the principle that,
‘‘in ...