State v. Tassone

OPINION

DORIS, Justice.

This is an appeal by the petitioner, Anthony Tassone (Tassone), from an “amended judgment” entered in a postconviction-re-lief proceeding before the Superior Court. The amended judgment, which was entered after a hearing held in the petitioner’s absence, changed the petitioner’s five-year criminal sentence, rendered illegal by the passage of G.L. 1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 11-1-6, as enacted by P.L. 1975, ch. 283, § 2, to a permissible two-year sentence. Tassone contends that as he was not present at the postconviction-relief hearing and as his counsel was not permitted…