State v. Riley

Summary

The dissent would uphold the defendant's 100-year sentence, reasoning that the governing juvenile-sentencing precedent prohibits only mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile homicide offenders and does not extend to Connecticut's discretionary sentencing scheme or to a term-of-years sentence. It concludes that the sentencing court considered extensive mitigating and aggravating information and had discretion to impose the sentence. The dissenting judges therefore would defer to the trial court rather than require express findings or particular words on the record.