Opinion ID: 1532443
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Broad Statements in Crosby Caused Confusion

Text: Because Jackson was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in accordance with statutes adopted before the 1989 enactment of the Truth-in-Sentencing Act, Jackson's natural life sentences were not affected by that legislation. Crosby, however, was sentenced to life under section 4214(a) of the Truth-in-Sentencing legislation. Unfortunately, in explaining how the Truth-in-Sentencing statute operated in Crosby's case, this Court discussed pre-Truth-in-Sentencing aspects of our Jackson opinion in terms that were unnecessary to our holding in Crosby. Our decisions in Crosby and Jackson both involved an application of the good time credit statute, but to different types of life sentences: in Jackson, a life sentence for specific pre-1990 violent crimes and in Crosby, a life sentence for post-1990 non-violent habitual offenders. As earlier noted, section 4346(c) treated a life sentence as a fixed term of forty-five years for purposes of determining parole eligibility in cases involving pre-Truth-in-Sentencing parole eligible life sentences for violent crimes  i.e. Jackson. [97] For those life sentences, good time credit was earned only for the purpose of accelerating the date of parole eligibility, but never for purposes of conditional release. [98] Section 4346(c), on the other hand, applied to post-Truth-in-Sentencing section 4214(a) life sentences for non-violent habitual offenders, who were never eligible for parole but were eligible for conditional release under section 4348 by the sentence reduction provisions of Truth-in-Sentencing Section 4381  i.e. Crosby. [99] For those life sentences, good time credit was earned only for the purpose of accelerating the date of conditional release, but never for purposes of parole. In Crosby, we held that under the Truth-in-Sentencing statute, a life sentence meant a term of forty-five years but only for section 4214(a) non-violent habitual offenders. That was because the new Truth-in-Sentencing section 4381 had been incorporated into the new section 4214(a) provision of the Truth-in-Sentencing statute. In this statutory setting, the references in Crosby to the operation of section 4346 and section 4348 upon the pre-Truth-in-Sentencing life sentences with the possibility of parole for violent crimes, were overbroad and unnecessary to our holding. That obiter dicta in Crosby is what caused the initial confusion in this case. When Jackson was decided in 1997, we stated that section 4348 did not apply to any life sentence. That statement was also overbroad. In Jackson, we should have more accurately stated that section 4348 did not apply to any life sentence with the possibility of parole that was imposed before the effective date of Truth-in-Sentencing. That qualification is important, because the Truth-in-Sentencing statute did make the conditional release provisions in section 4348 applicable to a life sentence imposed after 1990 under section 4214(a). Thus, to the extent we stated that Jackson was overruled by Crosby, it was only to the extent that the unqualified reference in Jackson to  any life sentence was overbroad and was not limited to the issue presented by Jackson: pre-Truth-in-Sentencing life sentences with the possibility of parole.