Opinion ID: 1532443
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Jackson Decision

Text: In Jackson, this Court confronted the same question that is presented by Evans on this appeal. Jackson, like Evans, was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole, before the enactment of Truth-in-Sentencing. The issue presented in Jackson was whether an inmate who is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole is entitled to conditional release by the Department of Correction under Del.Code Ann. tit. 11, § 4348. Jackson was sentenced in 1973 to two concurrent life terms in prison, with the possibility of parole, for Kidnapping in the First Degree and Rape in the First Degree. After his application for parole was denied in 1995, Jackson filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the Superior Court. Jackson claimed that the Department of Correction was required to set a conditional, or short-term, release date for him under section 4348. It was undisputed that for the purpose of determining Jackson's parole eligibility, the Parole Board was required to treat his life sentence as a fixed term of forty-five years. [88] Jackson argued, however, that the Department of Correction also was required to treat his life sentence as a fixed term of forty-five years for purposes of calculating a conditional release date. That is, Jackson, like Evans, asserted that, even if the Board denied him parole under section 4346, he was still entitled to conditional release by the Department of Correction under section 4348. In Jackson, we rejected that argument, and held that an inmate who is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole is not entitled to conditional release under section 4348. [89] We stated that, if the General Assembly had intended to permit those inmates serving life sentences with the possibility of parole to be eligible for conditional release under section 4348, it would have expressly so stated in the statute. [90]