NASHUA – Barion Perry, the 39-year-old former Nashua man who has served slightly more than seven years of a minimum 11-year State Prison term in connection with a plea deal on felony theft and burglary charges, arrived at Hillsborough County Superior Court-South in Nashua Monday eager to go before the judge to explain why he believes the remainder of his sentence should be suspended.

Perry, who once took an unrelated case to the U.S. Supreme Court – which drew widespread media attention despite the court’s denial of the appeal – became eligible for sentence-suspension in July.

Days later, his current attorney, Adam Bernstein, filed a 22-point motion in which he states, among many other observations, “there is no question that Mr. Perry has made (a significant) change from who he was when he entered prison.”

Early Monday afternoon, however, Bernstein had to tell his client, who had endured the roughly 150-mile transport from the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin, that the hearing was called off due to court scheduling issues.

Those issues stemmed from the fact that jury selections for five upcoming trials were scheduled on Monday’s court docket, and only one judge, Charles Temple, was on the bench Monday.

The court will schedule a new date for Perry’s motion hearing in the near future.

The prison time to which Perry was sentenced stems from two cases, the first involving charges of receiving stolen property and stalking. In February 2010, he was convicted of both offenses and sentenced to two terms of three and a half to seven years in prison, with all time suspended.

Then, sometime in 2011, Perry was arrested and charged with felony theft and burglary. He reached a plea agreement with prosecutors, and in July 2012 entered guilty pleas to the two charges in exchange for two prison terms of seven and a half to 15 years, to be served concurrently.

But because the suspended sentences from 2010 were still a factor for Perry at the time, the court imposed the three and a half to seven-year terms to be served concurrently with each other, but consecutive to the seven and a half to 15-year terms.

That brought Perry’s minimum stand-committed time to 11 years. He became eligible in July to file a motion to have the remainder of his sentence suspended as part of a fairly new provision enacted by the state legislature.

“Mr. Perry has availed himself of numerous programming opportunities to assist in his rehabilitation for re-entry into the community,” Bernstein wrote in the motion.

He noted Perry has “very close relationships” with his mother, as well as a brother and sister who live in Nashua.

Among Perry’s motives “to improve his life,” Bernstein wrote, is his “strong relationship” with his four children, who also live in Nashua. He has maintained “regular contact” with the children while in prison, which he intends to continue upon his release.

Bernstein said Perry has consistently “availed himself of rehabilitative efforts” while in prison, including participating in anger management, receiving “extensive treatment for mental illness” and working toward “strengthening his family relationships … .”

Perry also achieved his GED, Bernstein wrote, “which is no small feat for somebody who is incarcerated.”

The case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, stemmed from Perry’s appeal of his 2008 conviction on a felony theft charge, which is unrelated to the 2010 and 2012 cases.

Perry, represented at the time by attorney, Richard Guerriero, then a public defender, claimed that an eyewitness was unfairly influenced before identifying him as the suspect in the theft.

Guerriero went to Washington to argue the case before the nation’s highest court, telling the justices that judges’ courts should take special precautions to ensure eyewitness testimony is accurate.

Ultimately, the court denied Guerriero’s arguments and upheld Perry’s felony conviction.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com, or @Telegraph_DeanS.