Substitute House Bill No. 6568
          Substitute House Bill No. 6568

               PUBLIC ACT NO. 97-37


AN ACT CONCERNING SENTENCE REVIEW.


    Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and House of
Representatives in General Assembly convened:
    Section  51-196  of  the  general  statutes is
repealed and the following is substituted in  lieu
thereof:
    The review division  shall,  in  each  case in
which  an  application  for  review  is  filed  in
accordance  with  section   51-195,   review   the
judgment so far  as  it relates to the sentence or
commitment   imposed,   either    increasing    or
decreasing the penalty,  and  any  other  sentence
imposed on the  person  at  the same time, and may
order such different  sentence  or sentences to be
imposed as could  have been imposed at the time of
the imposition of  the  sentence  under review, or
may [, in  the  case  of a reformatory commitment,
modify the conditions  of  commitment  by ordering
its  suspension  for  such  terms  and  upon  such
conditions as said  division may in its discretion
order,  or  may]   decide  that  the  sentence  or
commitment under review should stand. IN REVIEWING
ANY JUDGMENT, THE  REVIEW  DIVISION  MAY, FOR GOOD
CAUSE, WAIVE ITS AUTHORITY TO INCREASE THE PENALTY
AND MAY, THEREAFTER,  CONDUCT  A  HEARING  ON SUCH
APPLICATION WITHOUT THE  APPLICANT  BEING PRESENT.
NOTHING IN THIS  SECTION  SHALL  BE  CONSTRUED  TO
PROHIBIT AN APPLICANT  FROM HAVING COUNSEL PRESENT
OR  FROM APPEARING  PRO  SE  AT  THE  HEARING.  In
reviewing any judgment,  said division may require
the  production of  presentence  or  precommitment
reports  and  any   other  records,  documents  or
exhibits connected with  such  review proceedings.
If the review division orders a different sentence
or disposition of  the  case,  the  SUPERIOR court
[sitting  in any  convenient  county  or  circuit]
shall resentence the  defendant  or make any other
disposition of the  case  ordered  by  the  review
division. Time served  on  the  sentence  reviewed
shall  be  deemed  to  have  been  served  on  the
sentence substituted. The  decision  of the review
division in each  case  shall  be  final  and  the
reasons for such decision shall be stated therein.
The secretary of  the review division shall act as
its clerk or,  if  there is no such secretary, the
clerk  of the  superior  court  for  the  judicial
district in which  the  review division is meeting
shall act as the clerk of the division. The acting
clerk  of  the  review  division  shall  send  the
original of each  decision  to  the  clerk  of the
court  [for  the   judicial  district]  where  the
judgment was rendered  and  a  copy thereof to the
Chief Justice, the  judge who imposed the sentence
or commitment reviewed,  the  person  sentenced or
committed,   the   principal    officer   of   the
correctional institution in  which  he is confined
and the reporter  of judicial decisions, who shall
select therefrom for publication such decisions as
he deems will  be  useful  as  precedents  or will
serve the public  interest  and shall prepare them
for publication in  the  manner in which decisions
of the Supreme  Court are prepared. Decisions thus
prepared for publication shall be published in the
Connecticut Law Journal  and,  if  the reporter of
judicial decisions so  directs, in the Connecticut
Supplement.

Approved May 8, 1997