Hammond v. Commissioner of Correction

• Citation: 259 Conn. 855,792 A.2d 774
• Decision Date: 26 March 2002
• Docket Number: (SC 16220)
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Parties: MARTIN HAMMOND v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION

259 Conn. 855

792 A.2d 774

MARTIN HAMMOND v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION

(SC 16220)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued December 6, 2000.

Officially released March 26, 2002.

McDonald, C. J., and Norcott, Katz, Palmer and Vertefeuille, Js.¹ Temmy Ann Pieszak, chief of habeas corpus services, office of the chief public defender, for the appellant (petitioner).

Madeline A. Melchionne, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and Steven R. Strom, assistant attorney general, for the appellee (respondent).

Opinion

PALMER, J.

The principal issue presented by this certified appeal is whether the petitioner, Martin Hammond, who is serving a twenty-five year prison term for murder and kidnapping,² is entitled to credit toward his sentence pursuant to General Statutes § 18-98d³ for the four months that he was incarcerated in Massachusetts while contesting extradition to this state on those charges after his arrest in Massachusetts pursuant to a fugitive warrant. The habeas court rejected the petitioner's claim under § 18-98d, and the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of the habeas court. Hammond v. Commissioner of Correction, 54 Conn. App. 11, 18, 734 A.2d 571 (1999). We conclude that the petitioner is not entitled to the presentence credit that he seeks and, consequently, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The following relevant facts are undisputed. On August 25, 1985, the petitioner was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts, pursuant to a fugitive warrant issued by the state of Connecticut in connection with crimes that he allegedly had committed earlier that month. After initially contesting this state's efforts to extradite him, the petitioner waived extradition on January 2, 1986. At that time, he was transported to Connecticut, where he was held at the Bristol police department from January 6, 1986, until his arraignment on January 8, 1986. On January 8, 1986, the petitioner was placed in the custody of the respondent, the commissioner of correction (commissioner).⁴ Thereafter, the petitioner was convicted of the crimes of murder and kidnapping in the second degree⁵ and was sentenced on June 9, 1986. The petitioner has remained in the custody of the commissioner since his arraignment on January 8, 1986.

The commissioner awarded the petitioner 152 days of presentence confinement credit under § 18-98d (a) for the period from January 8, 1986, to June 9, 1986, during which he was confined in a department of correction facility prior to sentencing. The commissioner also awarded the petitioner fifty days of presentence good time credit under § 18-98d (b) on the basis of his good conduct during the 152 days of presentence confinement. The petitioner, however, did not receive credit for the period from August 25, 1985, to January 2, 1986, during which he was incarcerated in Massachusetts prior to his extradition to this state. The petitioner also did not receive credit for the period from January 2, 1986, to January 6, 1986, during which he was in transit from Massachusetts to this state, or for the period from January 6, 1986, to January 8, 1986, during which he was confined at the Bristol police department.

In 1996, the petitioner commenced this habeas corpus action, claiming that he is entitled to presentence confinement and presentence good time credit under § 18-98d for the period from August 25, 1985, to January 8, 1986. The habeas court rejected the petitioner's claim and dismissed his petition, relying on Johnson v. Manson, 196 Conn. 309, 312, 493 A.2d 846 (1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1063, 106 S. Ct. 813, 88 L. Ed. 2d 787 (1986), and Taylor v. Robinson, 196 Conn. 572, 575, 494 A.2d 1195 (1985), appeal dismissed, 475 U.S. 1002, 106 S. Ct. 1172, 89 L. Ed. 2d 291 (1986), in which this court concluded that the habeas petitioners in those cases were not entitled to presentence confinement credit for time spent incarcerated in another state pending extradition to this state. The petitioners in Johnson and Taylor based their claims for presentence credit on General Statutes § 18-98,⁶ which, though linguistically similar to § 18-98d; cf. footnote 2 of this opinion; addresses presentence credit for prisoners arrested for offenses committed prior to July 1, 1981. See Taylor v. Robinson, supra, 573; Johnson v. Manson, supra, 310.

On appeal, the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of the habeas court. Hammond v. Commissioner of Correction, supra, 54 Conn. App. 18. With respect to the petitioner's claim that he was entitled to presentence credit for the time that he had been incarcerated in Massachusetts while contesting extradition to this state, the Appellate Court agreed with the habeas court that that claim was foreclosed by this court's reasoning in Johnson and Taylor. Id., 16. With respect to the petitioner's claim that he was entitled to presentence credit for the period from January 2, 1986, to January 8, 1986, the Appellate Court declined to consider that claim on the ground that it had not been briefed adequately. Id., 16 n.5.

We granted the petitioner's petition for certification limited to two issues, namely: (1) whether the Appellate Court properly concluded that the petitioner is not entitled to presentence confinement and presentence good time credit under § 18-98d for the time that he was incarcerated in Massachusetts while contesting this state's efforts to extradite him; and (2) whether the Appellate Court properly rejected the petitioner's claim that he is entitled to such credit for the period from January 2, 1986, to January 8, 1986, on the ground that the claim had been briefed inadequately. See Hammond v. Commissioner of Correction, 251 Conn. 919, 920, 742 A.2d 358 (1999). We agree with the Appellate Court's conclusion that the petitioner is not entitled to credit pursuant to § 18-98d for the time that he was incarcerated in Massachusetts. Although we disagree with the Appellate Court's conclusion that the petitioner failed to brief adequately his claim that he is entitled to credit for the period from January 2, 1986, to January 8, 1986, we reject that claim on its merits. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

I

The petitioner first claims that the Appellate Court improperly determined that he is not entitled to credit pursuant to § 18-98d for the time that he was incarcerated in Massachusetts. The petitioner advances two arguments in support of his claim. First, he argues that such credit is expressly authorized under the language of § 18-98d. Second, he argues that any possible ambiguity in the statutory language must be resolved in the petitioner's favor because the contrary construction adopted by the Appellate Court renders § 18-98d unconstitutional under the due process and equal protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution.⁷ We are not persuaded by the petitioner's arguments.

Whether § 18-98d authorizes presentence confinement and presentence good time credit for time that a pretrial detainee remains in custody in a sister state while contesting extradition to this state is an issue of statutory construction. "Statutory interpretation is a matter of law over which this court's review is plenary.... In construing statutes, [o]ur fundamental objective is to ascertain and give effect to the apparent intent of the legislature.... In seeking to discern that intent, we look to the words of the statute itself, to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Doyle v. Metropolitan Property & Casualty Ins. Co., 252 Conn. 79, 84, 743 A.2d 156 (1999). With these principles in mind, we turn to the petitioner's claim that he is entitled to presentence credit for the period of time during which he was incarcerated in Massachusetts prior to his extradition to this state.

The petitioner contends, first, that § 18-98d, by its terms, authorizes presentence credit for the period of time during which a pretrial detainee is incarcerated in an out-of-state facility while challenging this state's efforts to extradite him. Because the language of § 18-98d is similar to the language of § 18-98; see footnotes 2 and 5 of this opinion; our interpretation of § 18-98 in Johnson v. Manson, supra, 196 Conn. 309, and Taylor v. Robinson, supra, 196 Conn. 572, informs our construction of § 18-98d. We therefore begin our analysis of the petitioner's claim with a review of those two cases.

In Johnson, we held that, under § 18-98, presentence credit is available only to pretrial detainees who are incarcerated in a facility administered by the commissioner; Johnson v. Manson, supra, 196 Conn. 312, 317-19; or who otherwise are subject to the control of the commissioner. See id., 317-18 and n.9. In rejecting the claim of the petitioner, Samuel Lewis Johnson, that he was entitled to presentence credit for the time that he was incarcerated in a Florida facility while contesting extradition to this state on the charge of escape from custody, we concluded that Johnson's claim was foreclosed by "the plain, straightforward language of § 18-98...." Id., 317. We noted, in particular, "that § 18-98 as written has no language about `while awaiting extradition,' but rather clearly specifies `while awaiting trial.'" Id., 315. We explained that it was "obvious that the `awaiting trial' criterion is critical in determining credits for those so entitled." Id. We also focused on the requirement of § 18-98 that the pretrial detainee seeking presentence credit be confined in a community correctional center. See id., 317-18. We reasoned that "[a] `community correctional center' is a `correctional institution'; General Statutes [Rev. to 1985] § 1-1 (w);⁸ and encompasses...