Payton v. Albert

In Payton v. Albert, 209 Conn. 23, 547 A.2d 1 (1988) the Court addressed an issue concerning the effect of a jail time credit on a concurrent sentence. The Supreme Court in Payton stated that the legislature "has not intended to authorize the transfer of jail time credits accrued while in pretrial confinement under one offense to the sentence thereafter imposed upon conviction for another offense." Id., 31-32. The court further stated that under 18-98d, "there is now only a single jail time credit applicable to presentence confinements." Id., 31. The petitioner in Payton accrued credits for presentence confinement while he was held under two different informations simultaneously. The trial court later sentenced him to serve concurrent sentences with regard to charges brought under the two informations. Our Supreme Court noted that although General Statutes 18-98d pertains to the calculation of sentences generally, it does not address the matter of concurrent sentences. Payton v. Albert, supra, 209 Conn. 32. It thus examined General Statutes 53a-38 (b), which provides in relevant part that if sentences run concurrently, "the terms merge in and are satisfied by discharge of the term which has the longest term to run . . . ." Pursuant to that statute, the court upheld the calculation by the respondent commissioner of correction, which involved an adjustment of each sentence separately in light of the authorized jail time credits and a determination of which of the adjusted concurrent sentences had the longest term to run.