Opinion ID: 1438781
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Duty of a Tennessee Sheriff to a TDOC Prisoner

Text: Although it appears that the certified question as posed misconstrues Plaintiff's status as a TDOC prisoner, as a courtesy to the District Court and for the future reference of the federal courts, we will endeavor to answer the narrow question asked, to wit: What duty, if any, does Tennessee Code Annotated section 8-8-201(a)(3) impose upon a Tennessee sheriff to calculate the release date and order the release of a TDOC prisoner who is serving his period of incarceration in a county jail? To begin, we address what appears at first blush to be a contradiction in terms: that category of inmates who are TDOC prisoners yet confined in a local jail. We must look to numerous and scattered statutes to discover the members of this category. Generally speaking, a trial court must sentence felony offenders serving continuous time in confinement to incarceration in the TDOC. [7] See Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 40-35-104, Sentencing Comm'n Cmts; XX-XX-XXX, Sentencing Comm'n Cmts; XX-XX-XXX(a). Counties may choose, however, to enter into contracts with the TDOC to house certain felony offenders in the local jail or workhouse. Id. § 40-35-104(b). In that event, the sheriffs of those counties will have in their custody felony offenders who are serving a total sentence of one to three years or, in the case of a contracting county meeting certain population criteria, a total sentence of one to six years. Id. In addition to this group of defendants, some defendants sentenced to serve their confinement in the TDOC are temporarily housed in local facilities while awaiting transfer to a TDOC institution. See id. § 40-35-212(d). With respect to any of these defendants, whom we will refer to for the purposes of this opinion as TDOC prisoners, is the sheriff obligated to calculate the release date or to order the defendant's release? Defendant Sheriff Bartholomew asserts that Tennessee Code Annotated section 8-8-201(a)(3) imposes no such duty upon a Tennessee sheriff. Instead, he contends, the TDOC is the responsible entity. Defendant relies partly on the principles of Dillon's Rule to argue that, without an express statutory grant, the sheriff has no authority to calculate release dates or order release of TDOC prisoners housed in local jails. Dillon's Rule, a common law canon of statutory construction propagated by Iowa Supreme Court Justice John F. Dillon over 100 years ago, stands for the principle that local governments possess and can exercise only (1) powers granted in express words; (2) powers necessarily or fairly implied in or incident to the powers expressly granted; and (3) powers essential to the accomplishment of the declared objects and purposes of the entitynot simply convenient, but indispensable. See 1 John F. Dillon, A Treatise on the Law of Municipal Corporations §§ 237-239 (5th ed.1911); see also Gerald E. Frug, The City as a Legal Concept, 93 Harv. L.Rev. 1059, 1109-16 (1980) (describing Dillon's Rule and its dominance in contemporary legal thought). Any fair, reasonable, substantial doubt concerning the existence of power is resolved by the courts against the local entity, and the power is denied. With Dillon's Rule in mind, we resort to an examination of the statute in question under accepted principles of statutory construction. First, it is without question that the sheriff is a constitutional officer and the Tennessee Constitution grants such officers the control of the county jail and the custody of prisoners. Tenn. Const. art. VII, § 1; State v. Cummins, 99 Tenn. 667, 42 S.W. 880, 883 (1897). However, the specific duties and powers of the sheriff are provided by statute. Indeed, there are many statutes, section 8-8-201 included, that purport to set out the various powers and duties of the sheriff. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 8-8-201(b)(1) (listing other statutes that set forth additional duties of the sheriff). We assume that whenever the legislature enacts a provision, it is aware of other statutes relating to the same subject matter. Wilson v. Johnson County, 879 S.W.2d 807, 810 (Tenn.1994). Unless the newer statute expressly repeals or amends the old one, the new provision is presumed to be in accord with the same policy embodied in the prior statutes; thus, statutes `in pari materia'those relating to the same subject or having a common purposeare to be construed together, and the construction of one such statute, if doubtful, may be aided by considering the words and legislative intent indicated by the language of another statute. Id. at 809. If a conflict exists, specific statutory provisions will be given effect over conflicting general provisions. Arnwine v. Union County Bd. of Educ., 120 S.W.3d 804, 809 (Tenn.2003). Statutes on the same subject, although in apparent conflict, are construed to be in harmony if reasonably possible. In re Akins, 87 S.W.3d 488, 493 (Tenn.2002). The statute at issue in this case, section 8-8-201, provides that (a) [i]t is the sheriff's duty to: ... (3)[t]ake charge and custody of the jail of the sheriff's county, and of the prisoners therein; receive those lawfully committed, and keep them personally, or by deputies or jailer, until discharged by law. The direction to [t]ake charge and custody of the jail ... and of the prisoners therein ... and keep them... until discharged by law is general and could be interpreted broadly. See also Tenn.Code Ann. § 41-4-101 (2006) (The sheriff of the county has, except in cases otherwise provided by law, the custody and charge of the jail of the county, and of all prisoners committed thereto, and may appoint a jailer, for whose acts the sheriff is civilly responsible.). However, the language of the statute does not expressly confer a duty on the sheriff to calculate release dates or order release of TDOC prisoners housed locally. Nor, despite a diligent search, are we able to find any other statute that does so. Accordingly, we examine the Tennessee Code to determine if some entity other than the sheriff is responsible for keeping up with release dates and ordering release of TDOC prisoners housed in a jail or workhouse. Initially, we find it helpful to consider the meaning of release date. As part of Tennessee's sentencing scheme, most defendants convicted of felonies and sentenced to confinement are entitled to either automatic early release or consideration for early release upon attaining their release eligibility date. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-501. More specifically, those defendants serving in confinement a felony sentence of two years or less shall have the remainder of their original sentence suspended upon reaching their release eligibility date. Id. § 40-35-501(a)(3). Release of this category of offender is actually to probation, not parole, for the portion of sentence left unserved. Inmates serving longer sentences are treated differently. Rather than the remainder of their sentence being suspended automatically upon reaching their release eligibility date, most TDOC prisoners serving a sentence of longer than two years in confinement become eligible for parole at that time. [8] Subsections 40-35-501(b) through (f) provide for release eligibility depending on the offender's status as a mitigated, standard, multiple, persistent, career or repeat violent offender. A release eligibility date is assigned depending on the percentage of the sentence required to be served, less any sentence credits (good time credit) earned and retained by the prisoner. Id. For instance, the release eligibility date for a defendant convicted of robbery and sentenced as a Range I standard offender shall occur after service of thirty percent (30%) of the actual sentence imposed less sentence credits earned and retained by the defendant. Id. § 40-35-501(c). Thus, a defendant sentenced as a Range I standard offender to eight years, the sentence imposed on Plaintiff in this case for his aggravated robbery conviction, would be eligible for parole consideration upon serving a maximum of 2.4 years. The release eligibility date provided for in this section is the earliest date an inmate convicted of a felony is eligible for parole. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-501(k). [9] Early release for these prisoners is not automatic; rather, whether an inmate who becomes eligible for parole is actually released on parole is a decision entrusted to the sole discretion of the TBPP, an entity independent of the TDOC. Title 40, Chapter 28, of the Tennessee Code (Chapter 28) sets forth the provisions creating and governing the TBPP and also sets out the procedures by which the TBPP makes its parole determinations. Particularly relevant to this case, one section of Chapter 28 provides: Notwithstanding any other provision of the law to the contrary, the department of correction shall be responsible for calculating the sentence expiration date and the earliest release date of any felony offender sentenced to the department of correction and any felony offender sentenced to confinement in a county jail or workhouse for one (1) or more years. [10] Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-28-129. Thus, although the TBPP is responsible for making the decision of whether or not to grant parole to an eligible inmate, it is the TDOC that is responsible for determining whether a parole-eligible defendant has reached that point of time at which he may be considered for release on parole. The TDOC's responsibility in this regard is echoed in provisions of the Sentencing Act. Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501(o) [11] provides that, [n]otwithstanding any other provision of the law to the contrary, the [TDOC] is responsible for calculating ... the release eligibility date of any felony offender sentenced to the [TDOC] and any felony offender sentenced to confinement in a local jail or workhouse for one (1) or more years. See also Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-501(a)(4) (providing that no prisoner may be released under section-501 by the holding institution (including jails) until at least ten (10) days after receipt of all sentencing documents by the [TDOC] and ten (10) days after the [TDOC] has sent notice of the release eligibility dates to the district attorney general and the appropriate sheriff, jail administrator, workhouse superintendent or warden). Reading Chapter 28 and the Sentencing Act in pari materia, in the case of TDOC prisoners, regardless of where they are actually confined, it is clear that it is the TDOC's responsibility to determine sentence expiration dates and release eligibility dates. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-501(o); see also § 41-21-236 (Supp.2008) (addressing sentence reduction credits for inmates committed to the custody of the TDOC). It is the TBPP's responsibility to decide whether to actually grant parole and to thereafter supervise the parolee. See generally Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 40-28-101 through505. The language in these Code sections is clear: the TDOC is responsible for calculating sentence expiration dates and the earliest release dates for TDOC prisoners. These specific provisions control over the general provision in section 8-8-201(a)(3) assigning duties over the jail to the sheriff. The express provisions for the TDOC to calculate these release dates absolves the sheriff of responsibility to calculate the dates for such prisoners. Indeed, it appears that the sheriff is not authorized to release a TDOC prisoner until notified by the TDOC to do so. [12] We therefore conclude that the TDOC is responsible for calculating release eligibility dates for TDOC prisoners, regardless of where they are actually confined. Because these express statutory provisions unambiguously place this responsibility on the TDOC's shoulders, we deem it unwise to construe section 8-8-201(a)(3) so broadly as to place a duplicate responsibility on sheriffs. Accordingly, we agree with Defendant Sheriff Bartholomew that Tennessee Code Annotated section 8-8-201(a)(3) imposes no duty upon a Tennessee sheriff to calculate the release date or order the release of a TDOC prisoner serving time in the county jail.