OLR Bill Analysis
AN ACT MAKING MINOR, TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING CHANGES TO CERTAIN STATUTES CONCERNING CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW AND PROCEDURE.
This bill makes a number of unrelated minor, technical, and conforming changes.
By law, a cause of action is not lost by missing a statute of limitations if the process to be served is personally delivered to a state marshal within the required time frame and the process is served within 30 days of delivery. The bill extends this provision to service of process by constables and other proper officers. These officers are also authorized by statute to serve process (§ 7) (see BACKGROUND).
Rather than list every exception to the statutes that set the penalties for the different crime classifications (such as class A, B, C, and D felonies), the bill includes a general exception that other statutes that define a crime can provide a different penalty (§§ 9-10).
PA 07-123 split the offense of violating the conditions of release by someone released pending trial into 1st and 2nd degree crimes. The bill makes a conforming change to another statute that imposes a penalty for conviction of an offense while released pending trial. That statute excluded violations under the conditions of release statute. The bill makes a conforming change to exclude both the 1st degree and 2nd degree crimes (§ 12).
By law, a person convicted or found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect of certain crimes must submit to the taking of a DNA sample. Current law allows someone whose DNA profile has been included in the data bank to request its expungement if his or her criminal conviction is reversed and the case dismissed. The bill extends this provision to cases in which a finding of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect is reversed and the case dismissed (§ 17).
The bill eliminates a definition of “wire communication” in the provisions on criminal investigation of sex offender registrants using the Internet because it is not used in those provisions (§ 22).
EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2009
BACKGROUND
Related Case—Service of Process
A Superior Court judge recently interpreted the statute that preserves lawsuits if the process is delivered to a state marshal within the required time frame to file the action. The judge noted that the statute was amended as part a large bill to reform the sheriffs system and it was one of many statutes amended to give state marshals, instead of sheriffs, the power to serve process. This particular statute was amended to replace the broader term “officer,” which would have included constables and other proper officers who are authorized to serve process, with “state marshal. ” The judge concluded that the amendment was not intended to exclude process served by constables and a proper interpretation of the statute allowed it to apply to process given to a constable (Abitz v. Fierer, 44 CLR 820 (January 15, 2008)).
COMMITTEE ACTION
Judiciary Committee
Joint Favorable
Yea |
38 |
Nay |
0 |
(03/27/2009) |