Casiano v. Comm'r of Corr., SC19345

• Decision Date: 09 June 2015
• Docket Number: SC19345
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: CASIANO v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION

CASIANO v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION

SC19345

Supreme Court of Connecticut

June 9, 2015

FIRST DISSENT

ZARELLA, J., with whom ROBINSON, J., joins, dissenting. In Miller v. Alabama, U.S. , 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2469, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012), the United States Supreme Court determined that the eighth amendment to the federal constitution forbids a state sentencing scheme for juvenile homicide offenders that mandates life imprisonment without the possibility of parole¹ but did not consider whether the rule applies retroactively to cases in which the defendant's sentence became final before Miller was decided. Since that time, however, numerous jurisdictions have addressed that question and have concluded unanimously that, to the extent Miller articulated a new rule of criminal procedure, it is not a watershed rule under Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 311-13, 109 S. Ct. 1060, 103 L. Ed. 2d 334 (1989) (plurality opinion), and does not apply retroactively to juvenile offenders in postconviction proceedings. The majority disagrees, thus making Connecticut the only jurisdiction in the nation to reach the contrary conclusion. Moreover, the majority provides no explanation as to why it believes that every other jurisdiction to have considered the question has reached the wrong result, even under a more liberal state retroactivity analysis than the analysis required under Teague. See part II of this opinion. The majority also concludes that the rule announced in Miller applies to the petitioner, Jason Casiano, because it deems his fifty year sentence the functional equivalent of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The majority arrives at this conclusion even though the sentences at issue in Miller required the juvenile offenders in that case to spend the remainder of their lives in prison, and despite the fact that the Connecticut legislature has determined that sixty years is the functional equivalent of life without the possibility of parole under this state's carefully crafted sentencing scheme. See General Statutes § 53a-35b. For the reasons that follow, I reject the majority's conclusions as legally unsupportable, and, accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

I

I first consider the sentencing issue because this court need not decide whether Miller applies retroactively unless it determines initially that the petitioner's sentence is the functional equivalent of life without the possibility of parole. On this issue, I agree with Justice Espinosa² that Miller applies to a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without the expectation of release, in part because that was the sentence imposed on the two juvenile offenders in Miller. See Miller v. Alabama, supra, 132 S. Ct. 2460. The court in Miller also consistently described the issue as whether the eighth amendment proscribes a sentence that requiresa juvenile homicide offender to spend the remainder of his life in prison. See id., 2460, 2469. In addition, this court recognized in State v. Riley, 315 Conn. 637, 110 A.3d 1205 (2015), that "Miller is replete with references to . . . life without parole and like terms." Id., 653. Accordingly, the petitioner's fifty year sentence, on its face, is not within the purview of Miller because it is a term of years under which the petitioner will be released at the age of sixty-six, and, as a consequence, he is not expected to spend the remainder of his life in prison.

Insofar as the majority rejects this conclusion and determines that the petitioner's sentence is the functional equivalent of life without the possibility of parole, it acts in defiance of the legislature and this court's repeated recognition of the legislature's definition of "life imprisonment" in Connecticut's revised sentencing scheme. Under § 53a-35b, "life imprisonment," with two exceptions, is defined as a "definite sentence of sixty years . . . ."³ The legislature enacted the provision in 1980⁴ as part of its comprehensive revision of the state's criminal sentencing structure, which abolished indeterminate sentencing in favor of definite sentencing; Mead v. Commissioner of Correction, 282 Conn. 317, 325, 920 A.2d 301 (2007); in part to create more uniformity and consistency in the sentencing of similarly situated offenders. See, e.g., 23 H.R. Proc., Pt. 14, 1980 Sess., p. 4340, remarks of Representative Christopher Shays; Conn. Joint Standing Committee Hearings, Judiciary, Pt. 5, 1980 Sess., pp. 1133-34, remarks of Edwin Sullivan on behalf of New Haven Mayor Biagio DiLieto. As this court explained in Castonguay v. Commissioner of Correction, 300 Conn. 649, 16 A.3d 676 (2011), "[b]efore July 1, 1981, all felonies, with limited exceptions, were punishable by an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment. . . . Under this scheme, the trial court was authorized to set both the minimum and maximum portion of the sentence . . . [and] parole eligibility [was] established at the minimum less any good time used to reduce that minimum term. . . . The maximum term for a class A felony was life imprisonment, which meant the prisoner's natural life. . . . In 1980, as part of the legislature's comprehensive revision of the state's sentencing structure abolishing indeterminate sentencing and creating definite sentencing, the legislature enacted No. 80-442 of the 1980 Public Acts (P.A. 80-442), which became effective July 1, 1981 . . . . The legislature also enacted new legislation . . . that provided that . . . felonies committed on or after July 1, 1981, are punishable by a definite sentence. Under this scheme, sentencing courts were authorized to impose a flat or exact term of years of imprisonment without a minimum or maximum [term] . . . . For the crime of murder, the legislature provided that the sentence is a definite term of not less than twenty-five years nor more than life . . . . The legislature also enacted new legis-lation . . . defining imprisonment for life as a definite sentence of sixty years." (Citations omitted; footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 653-54. Accordingly, the definition of a life sentence in § 53a-35b was carefully chosen and has served as an integral part of Connecticut's criminal sentencing scheme for more than thirty years.

Since the revised sentencing scheme was enacted, this court has recognized repeatedly that life imprisonment, with two limited exceptions that do not apply in the present case,⁵ means a term of sixty years. See, e.g., State v. Adams, 308 Conn. 263, 274, 63 A.3d 934 (2013); Ostroski v. Commissioner of Correction, 301 Conn. 360, 360-61, 21 A.3d 444 (2011); Castonguay v. Commissioner of Correction, supra, 300 Conn. 654; State v. Collins, 299 Conn. 567, 615, 10 A.3d 1005, cert. denied, U.S. , 132 S. Ct. 314, 181 L. Ed. 2d 193 (2011); State v. Courchesne, 296 Conn. 622, 746 n.84, 998 A.2d 1 (2010); Mead v. Commissioner of Correction, supra, 282 Conn. 325; State v. Stenner, 281 Conn. 742, 745 n.4, 917 A.2d 28, cert. denied, 552 U.S. 883, 128 S. Ct. 290, 169 L. Ed. 2d 139 (2007); State v. Azukas, 278 Conn. 267, 270 n.2, 897 A.2d 554 (2006); State v. Ross, 269 Conn. 213, 340 n.73, 849 A.2d 648 (2004); State v. Roseboro, 221 Conn. 430, 432 n.2, 604 A.2d 1286 (1992); State v. Carpenter, 220 Conn. 169, 171, 595 A.2d 881 (1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1034, 112 S. Ct. 877, 116 L. Ed. 2d 781 (1992); State v. Tucker, 219 Conn. 752, 759, 595 A.2d 832 (1991); State v. Weinberg, 215 Conn. 231, 233 n.2, 575 A.2d 1003, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 967, 111 S. Ct. 430, 112 L. Ed. 2d 413 (1990); State v. Arnold, 201 Conn. 276, 277 n.1, 514 A.2d 330 (1986); State v. Hill, 196 Conn. 667, 668 n.2, 495 A.2d 699 (1985). Thus, even though sixty years does not constitute an actual life sentence under Miller for a convicted juvenile offender, Connecticut courts must, at the very least, comply with the legislative determination that sixty years is the functional equivalent of life in prison because this court always has followed the principle that "[w]e defer to the broad authority that legislatures possess in determining the types and limits of punishment for crimes. Indeed, [i]n examining the rationality of a legislative classification, we are bound to defer to the judgment of the legislature unless the classification is clearly irrational and unreasonable." (Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Heinemann, 282 Conn. 281, 311, 920 A.2d 278 (2007).

The majority casts aside this well established statutory authority and legal precedent, and, in effect, implicitly determines that § 53a-35b is unconstitutional as applied to juvenile offenders in Connecticut, declaring that, "although the legislature is free to create and define Connecticut's sentencing scheme . . . we are not constrained by the legislature's definition of life imprisonment as a sixty year term. We are charged with interpreting the eighth amendment to the federalconstitution in light of the . . . [c]ourt's decision in Miller. Whether Miller applies to sentences shorter than the legislatively defined 'life imprisonment' of sixty years is, therefore, a question for this court and not for the legislature." (Citation omitted.) Footnote 18 of the majority opinion. The majority thus rejects the notion that, "in order for a sentence to be deemed 'life imprisonment,' it must continue until the literal end of one's life." The majority instead concludes that "[t]he United States Supreme Court viewed the concept of 'life' in Miller and Graham [v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825 (2010)] more broadly than biological survival" and that the court "implicitly endorsed the notion that an individual is effectively incarcerated for 'life' if he will have no opportunity to truly reenter society or have any meaningful life outside of prison." I disagree.

The majority's analysis is fatally flawed because it conflates the reasoning in Graham and Miller. Although Graham and Miller are both eighth amendment cases, they stand for...