Opinion ID: 1811314
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: petitioner winkler: offender group

Text: Petitioner Winkler was convicted of three counts of DUI manslaughter and one count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death. The offenses were committed on April 9, 1985. At the time of his offenses, Winkler was eligible for emergency gain time. The Department never awarded any emergency gain time to any inmates prior to Gomez. Instead, and as set forth in Gomez, it utilized a series of new overcrowding gain time statutes. Each new statute essentially superseded the previous one. Winkler was awarded credits under all the programs enacted after emergency gain time. Thus, he received 720 days of administrative gain time and 1,860 days of provisional credits and when the Department stopped awarding provisional credits in 1991, the Florida Parole Commission began awarding him control release credits. In 1993, the Legislature canceled all administrative gain time and provisional credits but Winkler retained his control release eligibility. Eventually, however, due to the reduction in prison overcrowding, all of Winkler's control release credits were canceled. In 1997, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Lynce v. Mathis, 519 U.S. 433, 117 S.Ct. 891, 137 L.Ed.2d 63 (1997), that the State had violated the Ex Post Facto Clause when it retroactively canceled overcrowding gain time because such credits, like regular gain time, were subject to ex post facto analysis. The decision essentially overruled this Court's previous decisions holding that overcrowding gain time was not subject to ex post facto analysis. See, e.g., Blankenship v. Dugger, 521 So.2d 1097 (Fla.1988); Dugger v. Rodrick, 584 So.2d 2 (Fla.1991); Griffin v. Singletary, 638 So.2d 500 (Fla.1994). In December of 1998, this Court concluded in Thomas v. Singletary, 729 So.2d 369 (Fla.1998), that while the cancellation of control release credits did not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause, inmates were entitled to receive credits under the other overcrowding statutes in effect at the time of their offenses (emergency gain time, administrative gain time or provisional credits). See Gomez v. Singletary, 733 So.2d 499 (Fla.1998). Nevertheless, the Department determined that Winkler would not have received any credits because he was a Group 1 Offender. The Department contended that Group 1 Offenders were not entitled to the restoration of any credits because, at the time of these inmates' offenses, the emergency gain time statute was the only overcrowding statute in effect, and it authorized the award of credits only when the inmate population exceeded 98% of lawful capacity. Under the definition of lawful capacity in effect at the time of these prisoners' offenses, that threshold was not met. [4] Winkler contested this determination, asserting that the retroactive cancellation of Winkler's already awarded early release credits violated Ex Post Facto and Due Process Clauses of both the United States Constitution and the Florida Constitution. We conclude that even if some members of Offender Group 1 actually received overcrowding credits, they had no real entitlement to such credits under the Ex Post Facto Clause based on the underlying reasoning of this Court's decisions in Gomez and Meola v. Department of Corrections, 732 So.2d 1029 (Fla.1998). This Court, relying on and interpreting the United States Supreme Court's decision in Lynce, explained in Gomez that one must look to the statute in effect on the date of the inmate's offense to see what ex post facto entitlement each inmate might have. Inmates who were awarded credits under the provisional credits statute but whose offenses occurred prior to the effective date of any of the prison overcrowding statutes (i.e., prior to June 15, 1983) actually had no ex post facto entitlement to the credits they received. Petitioner Jones in Meola was an example of such an offender, and this Court ruled that the Department did not have to restore his credits. [5] Similarly, this Court also found that inmates who offended when the emergency gain time statute had a triggering threshold of 99% of lawful capacity (June 2, 1986-February 4, 1987), were not entitled to restoration of their administrative gain time or provisional credits under Lynce because the prison population did not reach that threshold when credits were being awarded. See Meola, 732 So.2d at 1033-34. Similarly, Group 1 Offenders were not and are not entitled to credits because the prison population did not exceed the relevant prison overcrowding percentile threshold. That threshold is determined based on the emergency gain time statute as it existed from its effective date in 1983. See § 944.598, Fla. Stat. (1983). While the definition of lawful capacity was 133% of design capacity for the Offender Groups (3-5) discussed in Gomez, see Gomez, 733 So.2d at 507-508, for Group 1 Offenders, the definition was different. Lawful capacity was defined as the total capacity of all institutions and facilities in the prison system as determined either by the Legislature or by the courts.  See § 944.598(7)(b), Fla. Stat. (1983) (emphasis added). The Legislature did not determine what was meant by the term until 1992. Any earlier effective date could only have been determined by a court. The court made such a determination in the settlement agreement executed in the landmark prison overcrowding case of Costello v. Wainwright, 489 F.Supp. 1100 (M.D.Fla.1980). Under that agreement, the Department was given until July 1, 1985, to attempt to reduce prison overcrowding before the Legislature's definition of lawful capacity as 133% of design capacity would go into effect. The definition of lawful capacity was not set until July 1, 1985. Therefore, no definitive and unlawful overcrowding could occur prior to that date. [6] Prior to July 1, 1985, the 1983 emergency gain time statute became effective and provided for the award of credits when prison overcrowding exceeded 98% of lawful capacity. No such credits, however, could be awarded because there was no judicial or legislative definition of lawful capacity; prison overcrowding could not be determined based on an undefined level. In other words, while there might have been some overcrowding, there could be no unlawful overcrowding until at least July 1, 1985. Before this date, the Department was not restricted under ex post facto principles in determining how many inmates it could house regardless of how the Department chose to define lawful capacity. [7] Winkler also claims his ex post facto rights have been violated because his credits were retrospectively canceled. In so arguing he attempts to redefine the term retrospective. He asserts that, since he received overcrowding credits but they were later taken away, the taking was an unlawful retrospective application of the law which violated ex post facto principles. The problem with this argument is that for ex post facto purposes the term retrospective has not been defined in the manner he suggests. In Lynce, the United States Supreme Court explained that two critical elements must be present for a criminal or penal law to violate ex post facto principles: (1) it must be retrospective, that is,  it must apply to events occurring before its enactment;  and (2) it must disadvantage the offender affected by it. Lynce, 519 U.S. at 441, 117 S.Ct. 891 (quoting Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 29, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981)) (emphasis added). While there is no disagreement that gain time forfeitures result in a disadvantage to inmates by increasing the time they have to spend in prison, the question that is left to answer is what is the operative event under the first Lynce criterion. In order for Winkler to prevail on his ex post facto claim, this Court would have to accept Winkler's assertion of what event is used to trigger a retroactivity determination. Winkler argues the event is the act of giving Winkler overcrowding credits. Thus, he opines the law taking away his credits was applied retrospectively to or after the event of receiving the credits. However, as we have previously indicated, the appropriate event for ex post facto purposes is the commission of the offense and the rights the offender had on the date he or she committed the offense. That means, for example, that if at the time of the criminal offense, inmate A had a right to receive 20 days per month of gain time and then later the Legislature changed the gain time to five days per month and applied that change retrospectively to inmate A's earlier occurring offense (the relevant event), then there would be an ex post facto violation. That did not occur here. At the time of Winkler's offense, he was entitled to receive overcrowding credits if prison overcrowding exceeded 98% of lawful capacity, which, as discussed above, did not occur. Winkler actually received credits under a more advantageous statute because he would not have received any credits under the statute in effect at the time of his offense. Therefore, even though he lost credits after receiving them, there is no constitutional violation because he lost something he had no right to receive at the time of his offense and that is the relevant time-frame for ex post facto purposes. Accordingly, neither Winkler nor any of the members of Offender Group 1 are entitled to any credits under ex post facto principles. Winkler's due process claim is controlled by this Court's decision in Meola v. Singletary, 732 So.2d 1029 (Fla.1998). There this Court found that, since none of the early overcrowding statutes provided for the cancellation of credits other than for certain specified misconduct, the petitioners had a reasonable expectation that they could keep the credits they had been awarded. That being the case, the State could not take the credits without providing due process. While balancing the expectations of the petitioners and the State's public security concerns, this Court determined that the legislative process had provided sufficient due process. Id. at 1036-37. [8] We conclude that the same analysis should apply here. Thus, Group 1 Offenders are not entitled to any overcrowding credits under due process principles. Based on the foregoing, we conclude that Winkler's petition for writ of habeas corpus should be denied in full. [9]