Opinion ID: 2286316
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutional Challenges to Retroactivity

Text: In response to our decision in Noble, the Department of Corrections stopped abiding by its 1988 regulation which preserved street time credit following revocation of parole, and started applying the rule that prisoners forfeited their street time when their parole was revoked. Appellants argue that the 1988 regulation was the law in effect when they committed their offenses, and that therefore the Department's retroactive application of a new rule which made their punishment more onerous by depriving them of street time credit infringed the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws. Retroactive application of a law that imposes a greater punishment than the law in effect when the crime was committed is forbidden by the Ex Post Facto clauses of the Constitution. [6] See Lynce v. Mathis, 519 U.S. 433, 439-41, 117 S.Ct. 891, 137 L.Ed.2d 63 (1997); Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 28-29, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981). A statute retroactively increasing the penalties imposed upon revocation of parole would fall within the prohibition, see Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 701, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727 (2000). And since administrative regulations that are validly promulgated pursuant to statutory authority have the force and effect of statutes, see Dankman v. District of Columbia Bd. of Elections and Ethics, 443 A.2d 507, 513 (D.C.1981) (en banc), we agree with appellants that a new regulation which enhances punishment beyond what was formerly authorized by a valid penal regulation is within the ex post facto prohibition. These principles are of no avail to appellants, however, because our holding in Noble means that the regulation promulgated by the Department of Corrections in 1988 was not a valid regulation. When this court interpreted the GTCA in Noble, we did not undo its repeal of the street time forfeiture provision of § 24-206(a); rather, we declared that the GTCA never effected a repeal of that provision, and that § 24-206(a) continued in full force and effect after the GTCA was enacted. See Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 U.S. 298, 312-13, 114 S.Ct. 1510, 128 L.Ed.2d 274 (1994) (A judicial construction of a statute is an authoritative statement of what the statute meant before as well as after the decision of the case giving rise to that construction.); see also United States v. McKie, 315 U.S.App. D.C. 367, 371,73 F.3d 1149, 1153 (1996) (a decision interpreting a statute does not change the statute but rather interprets the law as enacted by the legislature). The 1988 regulation was, therefore, invalid from its inception because it was directly contrary to the governing statutory language, namely, the provision in § 24-206(a) that required forfeiture of street time upon revocation of parole. The Department of Corrections had no authority to abrogate § 24-206(a), and the Department's correction of its erroneous interpretation of that law was not the same thing as a change in the law. The corrective action therefore did not run afoul of the ex post facto taboo. [A]n agency misinterpretation of a statute cannot support an ex post facto claim. . . . `The ex post facto clause of the Constitution does not give [appellants] a vested right in such an erroneous interpretation.' Caballery v. United States Parole Comm'n, 673 F.2d 43, 47 (2d Cir.1982) (quoting Mileham v. Simmons, 588 F.2d 1279, 1280 (9th Cir.1979)). [7]
Appellants have a second string to their Constitutional bow, and with it they aim their arrow directly at this court's decision in Noble. Citing Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964), appellants argue that our construction of the GTCA in Noble was so unexpected and contrary to the prevailing view that it would offend due process to apply our holding retroactively. In Bouie the Supreme Court overturned convictions under a state criminal trespass statute because the state supreme court's unforeseeable and retroactive expansion of the statute constituted a deprivation of the right of fair warning guaranteed by due process. Id. at 352, 84 S.Ct. 1697. The Court reasoned that an unforeseeable judicial enlargement of a criminal statute, applied retroactively, operates precisely like an ex post facto law. . . . If a state legislature is barred by the Ex Post Facto Clause from passing such a law, it must follow that a State Supreme Court is barred by the Due Process Clause from achieving precisely the same result by judicial construction. . . . If a judicial construction of a criminal statute is `unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue,' it must not be given retroactive effect. Id. at 353-54, 84 S.Ct. 1697 (citations omitted). See also Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 97 S.Ct. 990, 51 L.Ed.2d 260 (1977), where, following Bouie, the Court held that due process barred retroactive application of the Court's own recent decision announcing new Constitutional standards for obscenity prosecutions which relaxed requirements that the Court had enunciated in a previous decision. Although Bouie and Marks involved the judicial enlargement of criminal liability, the reasoning of those cases applies equally to the judicial enlargement of punishment for existing offenses such as appellants allege this court accomplished in Noble. See Johnson v. Kindt, 158 F.3d at 1063; Helton v. Fauver, 930 F.2d 1040, 1045 (3d Cir.1991). But see United States v. Newman, 203 F.3d 700, 702 (9th Cir. 2000) (holding that due process principles of Bouie are not applicable to after-the-fact increase in degree of punishment). There is force to appellants' argument. Prior to Noble the prevailing view in this jurisdiction  as expressed in legal opinions and briefs of the Corporation Counsel, a regulation promulgated by the Department of Corrections, decisions of the Superior Court, dicta in two opinions of this court, and the first district court decision on Matthew Noble's habeas petition  was that the GTCA impliedly repealed the street time forfeiture provision of § 24-206(a). The Department of Corrections officially informed prisoners who were recommitted to its custody after the revocation of their parole that they would retain credit for their street time. Over the course of a decade the Department calculated the sentences of thousands of prisoners in accordance with that rule. Although in Noble the D.C. Circuit deemed the issue a clouded one on which we had sent mixed signals, 317 U.S.App. D.C. at 308, 82 F.3d at 1112, we must give appellants their due: our decision in Noble, though ultimately 8-1 against implied repeal, contradicted expectations in the District that were encouraged by authoritative pronouncements and that were reasonably held. Under Bouie, however, the due process issue turns not solely on whether Noble was unexpected, but on whether it was unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue. Bouie, 378 U.S. at 354, 84 S.Ct. 1697. The question, in short, is whether our decision was so unforeseeable that appellants had no fair warning that it might come out the way it did. This is a stringent test; for courts frequently and inevitably issue legal rulings that are more or less unanticipated  particularly to those on the losing side  but that are routinely and properly applied to the parties in whose cases the rulings come. [8] We agree with the Tenth Circuit's conclusion in Johnson v. Kindt that our decision in Noble was not unforeseeable in the Bouie sense. Noble did not overrule a previous decision of this court. Cf. Marks, 430 U.S. at 195-96, 97 S.Ct. 990. Nor did Noble employ indefensible or even novel legal reasoning; our decision was grounded on the well established principle of statutory construction that repeals by implication are strongly disfavored. And both the holding and the rationale of Noble were forecasted explicitly by the 1991 opinion of the Ninth Circuit in Tyler, the only appellate decision that directly addressed the issue prior to our decision. Johnson v. Kindt, 158 F.3d at 1063. Cf. Rose v. Locke, 423 U.S. 48, 53, 96 S.Ct. 243, 46 L.Ed.2d 185 (1975) (distinguishing Bouie because [o]ther jurisdictions had already reasonably construed identical statutory language to apply to such acts); United States v. Newman, 203 F.2d at 703 (even if Bouie applies here, no due process violation occurred because the decision . . . was reasonably foreseeable given the circuit split on the meaning of the statute in question). Imagine if, at any time prior to Noble, appellants had asked their lawyers to examine the state of the law and advise them as to whether the GTCA repealed the street time forfeiture provision of § 24-206(a). On the ultimate merits of that question, reasonable lawyers could have differed, as in actuality they did; but a competent lawyer would have warned appellants that the issue was controverted and unresolved, that implied repeals are disfavored, and that the GTCA might eventually be construed not to limit § 24-206(a). Appellants would have been warned, in other words, that despite the enactment of the GTCA, the issuance of implementing regulations by the Department of Corrections, and the seemingly uniform views of officials in the District, revocation of parole might turn out to entail loss of street time after all. The preceding discussion might suggest that appellants and other D.C.Code offenders were only theoretically on notice that § 24-206(a) might require forfeiture of street time. We think that is not so. D.C.Code offenders were given actual warning of our eventual holding in Noble by the actions taken by the United States Parole Commission after the GTCA took effect. Pursuant to D.C.Code § 24-425, the Attorney General could and frequently did place offenders under federal rather than District supervision. See District of Columbia v. Cooper, 483 A.2d at 322 (D.C. prisoners have no legitimate expectation that they will remain in D.C. prison facility); Curry-Bey v. Jackson, 422 F.Supp. at 933 (no justifiable expectation to be considered for parole by D.C. Board rather than Commission). It was no secret that D.C.Code offenders who found themselves under federal supervision were divested of their street time if their parole was revoked because the Commission did not agree with the District that the GTCA repealed the street time forfeiture provision of § 24-206(a). D.C.Code offenders were, therefore, on actual notice that under § 24-206(a) they might lose street time upon revocation of parole, notwithstanding the GTCA, at least in the event that the Attorney General designated them to serve their prison sentences in federal facilities. It follows that D.C. offenders were on notice that the law in this area was unsettled, and that the disagreement between the Commission and the District might one day be settled in favor of the Commission's view, as in Noble it was. It is true that prisoners placed in the custody of the Department of Corrections after revocation of their parole were officially told that they would receive credit for their street time. Appellants argue that those prisoners understandably relied on what they were told as they planned for their release from prison and the end of their sentences. Their reasonable expectations were raised and then frustrated when the Department of Corrections corrected their sentences by subtracting street time credit in compliance with Noble. This was indeed regrettable. Cf. Breest v. Helgemoe, 579 F.2d 95 (1st Cir. 1978) (prospect of release on date certain may assume a real and psychologically critical importance to prisoner). That fact does not, however, mean that Noble was unforeseeable within the meaning of Bouie, or  absent other, more tangible prejudice, Lerner v. Gill, 751 F.2d 450, 459 (1st Cir.1985)  that the belated correction of sentences otherwise violated due process. The general rule is otherwise. An expectation of early release from prison (or from service of a sentence) that is induced not by a valid statute or regulation but by the mistaken representations of officials does not without more give rise to a liberty interest entitled to protection under the Due Process Clause. See Jago v. Van Curen, 454 U.S. 14, 17-19, 102 S.Ct. 31, 70 L.Ed.2d 13 (1981) (rescission without hearing of prisoner's promised parole prior to his release held not violative of due process). Only in rare circumstances have courts allowed the misconstructions of officials to estop the proper execution of state or federal law, and such cases have involved prejudice and harm beyond frustrated expectations. Lerner, 751 F.2d at 459; see also Office of Pers. Mgmt. v. Richmond, 496 U.S. 414, 423, 110 S.Ct. 2465, 110 L.Ed.2d 387 (1990); Heckler v. Community Health Servs. of Crawford County, Inc., 467 U.S. 51, 60, 104 S.Ct. 2218, 81 L.Ed.2d 42 (1984). Thus, it is a well established rule that a prisoner has no constitutional right to object to the correction of a miscalculation of his sentence. See, e.g., United States v. Merritt, 478 F.Supp. 804, 807 (D.D.C.1979) (A convicted person will not be excused from serving his sentence merely because someone in a ministerial capacity makes a mistake with respect to its execution.) [9] Rather, [t]he public have rights in such matters which it is beyond the power of the public officer to barter away, Leonard v. Rodda, 5 App. D.C. 256, 270 (1895). The offender's expectation and reliance interests in sentence mistake cases are ordinarily trumped by the strong public interest in crime prevention, see United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 750, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987), public safety, see Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822-23, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974), and punishing criminals, see Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 669, 103 S.Ct. 2064, 76 L.Ed.2d 221 (1983). We conceive of the possibility that, under extreme circumstances, a belated correction of a sentence might be so unfair that it must be deemed inconsistent with fundamental notions of fairness embodied in the Due Process Clause. De-Witt v. Ventetoulo, 6 F.3d 32, 35 (1st Cir. 1993). In Noble this court allowed for the possibility that this substantive due process concern might be implicated if the District were to reincarcerate ex-offenders whose sentences had been deemed satisfied and who had readjusted to society. See 693 A.2d at 1105 (citing Johnson v. Williford, 682 F.2d 868, 871-73 (9th Cir. 1982)). That particular situation is not before us, however, since the District has chosen not to re-arrest persons who were previously granted unconditional release. Appellants do not contend that across-the-board retroactive application of Noble to persons still in the custody of the Department of Corrections would violate substantive due process, nor could they plausibly do so. As much as there are substantial questions about how the requirements of substantive due process apply to the correction of sentences, [10] one thing is certain. Only the most egregious case, involving for example governmental culpability and unusual prejudice to the affected prisoner, would support a substantive due process claim. No such claim has been asserted in this case, nor have we been told that any D.C. prisoner has asserted such a claim in any other post- Noble case. The mere fact that we can conceive of the bare possibility that a prisoner in unusual circumstances might have a substantive due process claim is no justification for prohibiting the general recomputation of sentences in accordance with Noble. Finally, our conclusion that retroactive application of Noble comports with due process is not undermined by the possibility that some prisoners may have sustained actual prejudice as a result of reliance on the pre- Noble misunderstanding of the law in the District. Appellants' principal claim in this regard is that there may be some cases in which the Board of Parole would not have revoked parole at all if it had known that forfeiture of street time would result. Appellants rely on the concession of the District (made in its statement supporting rehearing en banc in Noble ) that in cases where the parolee had spent years successfully on parole before incurring technical or minor violations of parole, such as failure to keep an appointment with a parole officer (as opposed to new criminal violations), the Board might have revoked parole based on the understanding that the parolee was entitled to street time, but might not have revoked parole if the parolee faced years more incarceration without the street time credit. Such parolees would have been prejudiced by the Board's misapprehension of the law if our post-revocation decision in Noble resulted in their actual incarceration for longer than the Board intended. [11] This possibility of actual prejudice in a few cases does not require us to conclude that due process bars retroactive application of Noble in all cases. There is another remedy. If the Board would not have revoked parole in a particular case but for its misapprehension of the law, its decision would be vulnerable to a challenge in court for abuse of discretion. `A district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law,' Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 100, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996), and the same is true of the [Board of Parole]. Teachey v. Carver, 736 A.2d 998, 1004 (D.C.1999); see also Hall v. Henderson, 672 A.2d 1047, 1055 (D.C.1996) (applying abuse of discretion standard to decision of Parole Board). If the Board did abuse its discretion by revoking parole because of its misunderstanding of the applicable law, a remand to the Board (or its successor, since the Board of Parole was recently abolished [12] ) for a new revocation determination in light of correct legal principles would be appropriate. Cf. Teachey, 736 A.2d at 1007. [13]