Ortiz v. Commissioner of Correction

── Ortiz v. Commissioner of Correction ── Court: Connecticut Appellate Court Date: May 26, 2026 Author: Suarez Category: General ************************************************ The “officially released” date that appears near the beginning of an opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it is released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for the filing of postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecti- cut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying an opinion that appear in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ************************************************  Ortiz v. Commissioner of Correction AKOV ORTIZ v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION (AC 47672) Suarez, Clark and Wilson, Js. Syllabus The petitioner, who had been convicted of several crimes, including murder, appealed, following the granting of certification, from the habeas court’s judgment dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He claimed that the court improperly concluded that the respondent Commissioner of Correction had correctly calculated the presentence confinement credit to which the petitioner was entitled for the time that had elapsed between his arrest for murder and his sentencing on that charge. Held: The habeas court properly dismissed the petitioner’s habeas petition on the ground that it failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted, as the respondent’s calculation of the petitioner’s presentence confinement credit pursuant to statute (§ 18-98d (a) (1) (A)) was correct. The petitioner’s contention that he was entitled to presentence confinement credit because the various crimes of which he had been convicted arose out of a single course of conduct was unavailing, as each of the sentences imposed on him, which were to run concurrently with each other, had arisen out of a different incident on a different date under a different docket number, and, thus, the petitioner’s appeal was controlled by Harris v. Commissioner of Correction (271 Conn. 808), which held that presentence confinement credit that accrues simultaneously on more than one docket is utilized fully on the date it is applied to a petitioner’s first sentence and cannot be counted a second time to accelerate a discharge date for any subsequent sentence without violating the language of § 18-98d (a) (1) (A). Argued December 4, 2025—officially released May 26, 2026 Procedural History Amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Tolland, where the court, Newson, J., rendered judgment dismiss- ing the petition in part; thereafter, the court denied the petition for certification to appeal, and the petitioner appealed to this court, which dismissed the appeal; sub- sequently, the Supreme Court denied the petitioner’s petition for certification to appeal; thereafter, the court, Bhatt, J., granted the respondent’s motion to dismiss the remaining counts of the petition and rendered judgment  Ortiz v. Commissioner of Correction ther