Opinion ID: 196495
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The 1977 Aggregation Policy.

Text: 13 In 1977, the Commonwealth recast its interpretation of section 133A. The impetus for change was the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) in Henschel v. Commissioner of Correction, 368 Mass. 130, 330 N.E.2d 480 (Mass.1975). Henschel required the aggregation for parole-eligibility purposes of a prisoner's consecutive county house of correction and state institution sentences. See id. 330 N.E.2d at 483-85. The SJC advanced a thoughtful justification in support of aggregation: 14 To follow the defendant's [non-aggregation] approach would require the board to make a series of decisions granting parole from one sentence to the next rather than a single decision on the basis of one parole eligibility date for all sentences. The former procedure makes little sense since the decision to grant parole is to be based on whether the board believes the prisoner can live freely outside of prison without violating the law. 15 Id. 330 N.E.2d at 484. The Commonwealth found this rationale to be equally convincing in the context of making decisions to parole prisoners serving life sentences into overhanging from-and-after sentences. Consequently, it rethought its earlier interpretation of section 133A and revised its policies regarding parole eligibility for certain classes of inmates, including lifers who faced impending from-and-after sentences. Under the neoteric policy, such inmates were not regarded as falling under section 133A and would no longer receive parole hearings at the fifteen-year mark; instead, the parole-ineligible portion of the prisoner's life sentence (fifteen years) would be aggregated with the parole-ineligible portion of his from-and-after sentences to arrive at a real parole-eligibility date, that is to say, a single date at which a favorable parole decision would result in the prisoner's actual release from incarceration, not just his parole from one sentence into another. 3 While this paradigm was not compelled by the holding in Henschel (which did not specifically address the aggregation of life sentences with from-and-after sentences), the respondent determined that the new arrangement more faithfully mirrored the tenets undergirding Henschel. 16 In 1982--the year before Hamm would have received his initial section 133A hearing under the former policy--the Commonwealth applied the new policy to him and recalculated his parole-eligibility date. 4 The aggregation resulted in a single, real parole-eligibility date of November 2001. 5 Though this structural change obviated the need for the petitioner to obtain two parole permits to secure his release in 2001, he claims that it also impermissibly deprived him of an opportunity for release at an earlier date. 17 The petitioner's thesis runs along the following lines. Massachusetts law affords prisoners serving indeterminate terms of years various ways to reduce their sentences. These same options, Hamm claims, are not available to prisoners who are serving life sentences. Thus, if he had been paroled into his (indeterminate) from-and-after sentences in 1983, he could have availed himself of these opportunities and possibly could have gained his freedom earlier than 2001. Under the 1977 policy, however, he effectively remains on life sentence status during the full term of his immurement and, therefore, cannot take advantage of these early-release opportunities, which include: 18 (1) Establishing a Wrap-up Date. Once paroled into his from-and-after sentences, the petitioner would immediately acquire, subject to divestiture for misconduct, statutory good time under Mass.Gen.L. ch. 127, Sec. 129. This good time would be based on the top end of his indeterminate sentences (forty years) and would, the petitioner claims, amount to sixteen and one-half years. He could earn additional good-time credits (up to seven and one-half days per month) by participating in educational and vocational programs. 6 See Mass.Gen.L. ch. 127, Sec. 129D. Moreover, the sentencing court (both initially and on resentencing) gave the petitioner 210 days credit on his four from-and-after sentences for presentence incarceration. Hamm theorizes that this credit applies separately to each of his four from-and-after sentences, yielding an aggregate credit of two years and four months for jail time. 19 We assume arguendo the accuracy of the petitioner's figures without independently verifying them. 7 These potential reductions, totalling twenty-three years and one month, would, if garnered, enable him to leave prison without undergoing a second parole hearing after serving just sixteen years and eleven months on his from-and-after sentences. 8 Hence, if the petitioner had been paroled into his from-and-after sentences in November of 1983, he might have established a wrap-up date in October 2000, thus bringing about his release more than a year earlier than his current aggregated parole-eligibility date. 20 (2) Early Parole. Once paroled into his from-and-after sentences, the petitioner could also reduce the parole-ineligibility period of these sentences, which otherwise would remain at seventeen years and four months. First, he asserts that he would be credited automatically with the same two years and four months of jail time. But see note 7, supra, and accompanying text. Second, his earned good time would effectively count as time served toward his parole-ineligible term. On this basis, he argues that if he had gained parole from his life sentences in 1983 and earned section 129D credits from then on at the maximum rate, he might have been eligible for real parole as early as November of 1995. 9 21 (3) Special Parole. The petitioner's final opportunity-related theory suggests that aggregation has already deprived him of the possibility of obtaining special consideration parole as early as 1989, after serving just one-third of his from-and-after minimum sentences, less jail credits. See Hamm v. Commissioner of Correction, 29 Mass.App. 1011, 564 N.E.2d 1032, 1033 n. 5 (Hamm II), rev. denied, 409 Mass. 1102, 566 N.E.2d 1131 (1991). The respondent effectively parries this thrust, stating that Hamm may apply for this type of parole consideration even under the 1977 aggregation policy. Finding no evidence in the record that the petitioner has made an effort to apply for special consideration parole, or that the Parole Board would not consider his request, we cannot conclude that aggregation has deprived the petitioner of this benefit. See id. Accordingly, we do not further discuss this aspect of Hamm's claim of harm. 22