Opinion ID: 2424519
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Wickes

Text: The year following the filing of our opinion in Fields, we decided Beshears v. Wickes, 349 Md. 1, 706 A.2d 608 (1998). Like Fields, Wickes was serving a pre-1992 sentence when he was released on mandatory supervision, only to be re-incarcerated for post-1992 offenses. Unlike Fields, however, Wickes's pre-1992 sentence was for a violent crime ( i.e., rape). In denying Wickes the more favorable good-conduct credit rate installed by the 1992 amendment, the Division did not rely upon the fact that Wickes's term of confinement was imposed pre-1992, similar to the position it took in Fields. Rather, it stressed the fact that Wickes's pre-1992 sentence was for a crime of violence. It combined Wickes's pre- and post-1992 sentences into a single term of confinement under the aggregation principle of Art. 27, § 700(a). Then, it disallowed Wickes from earning the more favorable rate under the limiting provision in Art. 27 § 700(d)(2) (inmate[s] whose term[s] of confinement include[] a ... sentence for ... a crime of violence....). Wickes, 349 Md. at 4, 706 A.2d at 609. We disagreed with the Division, holding that Wickes was entitled to receive the more favorable rate for his post-1992 non-violent, non-drug sentences. Once again, we rejected the principle that `all sentences that overlap or run consecutively must aggregate for all purposes to a single term of confinement.' Wickes, 349 Md. at 9, 706 A.2d at 612 (quoting Fields, 348 Md. at 267-68, 703 A.2d at 178).