Opinion
(SC 18600)
Officially released July 5, 2011
Amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Tolland, geographical area number nineteen, and tried to the court, A. Santos, J.; judgment denying the petition, from which the petitioner, on the granting of certification, appealed. Appeal dismissed.
Damon A. R. Kirschbaum, filed a brief for the appellant (petitioner).
Madeline A. Melchionne and Terrence M. O'Neill, assistant attorneys general, George Jepsen, attorney general, and Richard Blumenthal, former attorney general, filed a brief for the appellee (respondent).
Opinion
The sole issue in this appeal is whether General Statutes § 53a-35b, which defines a sentence of life imprisonment as a term of sixty years, applies to the sentence of the petitioner, Richard Ostroski, who committed the offense prior to July 1, 1981, the effective date of § 53a-35b, but was sentenced after that date. The petitioner contends that the habeas court improperly rejected his challenge to his indeterminate sentence on the basis of that court's conclusion that the statute only applies prospectively. This court recently rejected an identical argument advanced by the petitioner in Castonguay v. Commissioner of Correction, 300 Conn. 649, 16 A.3d 676 (2011), a case that is indistinguishable from the present case as to the material facts. Because Castonguay controls, which the petitioner in the present case concedes, the appeal is dismissed.
The petitioner appealed from the judgment of the habeas court to the Appellate Court, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199 (c) and Practice Book § 65-1.
The appeal is dismissed.