Opinion ID: 2196695
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fields, Wickes, and Henderson

Text: As we pointed out in both Fields and Henderson, inmates in the State correctional system are eligible to earn four kinds of credits against their sentences credits for good conduct, for performing work tasks assigned to them, for satisfactory progress in vocational or other educational and training courses, and for special work projects. Credits for work tasks (five days a month), vocational and educational courses (five days a month), and special projects (up to ten days a month) are awarded monthly, as earned. Good conduct credits, however, are deducted in advance, subject to being rescinded if the inmate misbehaves in various ways. Until October 1, 1992, good conduct credits were deducted for all inmates at the rate of five days a month. The aggregate deduction was made in advance from the inmate's term of confinement, which was defined as the length of a single sentence or, if the inmate was serving multiple sentences, whether concurrent or consecutive, as the period from the first day of the sentence beginning first through the last day of the sentence ending last. See former Maryland Code, Article 27, § 700; current §§ 3-701 and 3-704 of the Correctional Services Article. In 1992, the Legislature made the first of two changes that unintendedly complicated this fairly simple arrangement. By 1992 Md. Laws, ch. 588, the General Assembly (1) amended former § 700(d)(2) to retain the good conduct credit of five days a month for inmates whose term of confinement includes a consecutive or concurrent sentence for either a crime of violence as defined in Article 27, § 643B of the Code or certain controlled dangerous substance offenses prohibited by § 286 of Article 27, and (2) enacted a new § 700(d)(3) to increase the rate for all other inmates to ten days a month. An uncodified § 2 of the 1992 Act made the new law applicable only to a term of confinement imposed on or after October 1, 1992. As we noted in Henderson, that law, for the beneficent purpose of doubling the good conduct credit for certain inmates, not only created a distinction between the two classes of inmatesthose serving sentences for violent crimes or crimes listed in § 286 and those serving sentences for all other crimesbut: [t]hat, when coupled with the prospectivity language of Section 2 of the Act, created a double problem: it brought into question whether an inmate serving a sentence imposed prior to October 1, 1992 as well as a sentence imposed after that date was entitled to the additional five days a month credit on the later sentence and, even if such an inmate ordinarily would get the additional credit, it raised the question of whether that would be the case if the earlier sentence was for a violent or listed drug offense. Henderson, 351 Md. at 442, 718 A.2d at 1152. Fields involved three inmates who had been sentenced prior to October 1, 1992, either paroled or released on mandatory supervision, and reincarcerated after October 1, 1992, to serve a remaining part of the pre-1992 sentence as well as one or more new sentences imposed after October 1, 1992, for conduct committed while they were on release. The common issue presented in all three cases was whether those inmates were entitled to good conduct credits at the 10-day a month rate on the sentences imposed after October 1, 1992. The Division of Correction, in accordance with the general legislative directive in former § 700 of Article 27, consolidated all of the sentences into one term of confinement, which began before October 1, 1992, and thus determined, in light of the prospectivity section of the 1992 Act, that the inmates were entitled to only five days a month on the aggregate term of confinement. That approach, founded on a strict application of the concept and definition of term of confinement, precluded inmates who received a post-1992 sentence for a crime that was neither a crime of violence under § 643B nor proscribed by § 286 from receiving the benefit of the additional five days a month for that new sentence, and we did not believe that the Legislature intended that result. We discerned that the legislative intent behind the single term of confinement concept was simply to ensure that inmates who were serving multiple sentences received only the single credit and not separate credits against each sentence, that, in light of the history and apparent purpose of the 1992 law, application of that concept to the situation where the inmate was serving one or more sentences imposed before October 1, 1992, and one or more imposed afterward, created an ambiguity as to how much credit should be applied to the later sentence(s), and that, under the rule of lenity, the statute had to be construed in favor of the inmates. To achieve that result, and implement the legislative purpose, we held that, for purposes of deducting good conduct credits, new sentences imposed after October 1, 1992 were to be construed as separate sentences, instead of aggregated as part of a single term of confinement commencing prior to that date. Good conduct credits on those post-1992 sentences, we declared, were to be calculated at the rate of ten days a month. As noted, the Fields case involved three inmatesFields, Sayko, and Hood. All of the sentences received by Sayko and Hood, both before and after 1992, were for non-violent, non-drug-related crimes. The situation with Fields was different. He had two pre-1992 sentencesone, of ten years, with five years suspended, for daytime housebreaking, which, at the time, was included in Article 27, § 643B as a crime of violence, and a consecutive two-year sentence for possession of heroin, which was neither a violent crime nor one created under § 286 of Article 27. He was released on mandatory supervision in May, 1992, but, in February, 1994, he was convicted of theft and malicious destruction of propertynon-violent, non-drug-related crimesfor which he received an 18-month sentence. Those convictions had two collateral consequences: (1) he was found in violation of the probation imposed as part of the split sentence received for the daytime housebreaking, and the five-year portion of that sentence that had been suspended was ordered executed, and (2) he was also found in violation of a probation imposed for another, unrelated offense, leading to the execution of an additional, consecutive, six-month sentence. When Fields was returned to prison, the good conduct credits that had been deducted from the initial seven-year term of confinement were rescinded, leaving some part of that term to be served. The Division of Correction treated the additional five-year part of the daytime housebreaking sentence, as to which the suspension had been lifted, and the new, concurrent, 18-month sentence for theft and malicious destruction of property, as part of a single term of confinement that commenced prior to October 1, 1992, and thus deducted good conduct credits against those sentences at the rate of five days a month. We found that to be error. We concluded that, [f]or the purposes of good-conduct credits, new sentences imposed after October 1, 1992 should be construed as separate instead of aggregated as part of one single term of confinement. On that basis, we held that Fields should earn credits at the rate of five days per month with respect to the remainder of his original seven-year sentence for housebreaking and violation of probation for his heroin conviction and [w]ith respect to all of Fields's other sentences, including the reimposition of the five years that had originally been suspended in conjunction with Fields's sentence for housebreaking, Fields should be awarded good-conduct credits at a rate of ten days per month. Id. at 268, 703 A.2d at 178-79. In Wickes, we applied essentially the same principle stated in Fields. In 1979, Wickes was convicted of rape, a crime of violence under § 643B, and was sentenced to a term of 20 years. In 1993, through the application of various diminution credits, he was released on mandatory supervision. In 1995, he was convicted of third-degree burglarynot a violent crime under § 643Band sentenced to seven years. That conviction led to the revocation of his mandatory supervision release and the rescission of 1,000 good conduct credits that had been deducted from the rape sentence. As had been done with Fields, the Division of Correction treated the new sentence and the unserved part of the 1979 sentence as parts of one term of confinement, commencing in 1979, and thus awarded good conduct credits against the aggregate at the rate of five days a month. The Division sought to distinguish Fields on the ground that Wickes's term of confinement included a sentence for a violent crime, thereby rendering him ineligible for the higher credit. We rejected the distinction and, in conformance with our holding in Fields, held that the pre-1992 sentence for rape was not to be aggregated with the post-1992 sentence for a non-violent crime and that good conduct credits against the latter were to be at the ten-day a month rate.