Opinion ID: 2390124
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reconciling the Two Statutes.

Text: In this case, as in our previous encounter with the GTCA, we are dealing not with one statute but with two. Winters, supra, 596 A.2d at 573, (Schwelb, J. concurring), id. at 581, (Ferren, J., concurring). When § 24-206(a) was the sole statute dealing with the issue now under consideration, it explicitly provided (and still provides) that prisoners in the District were not entitled to credit for time served on parole. Section 24-431(a) states, however, that prisoners are now entitled to credit for street time. The correct rule of interpretation is, that if divers statutes relate to the same thing, they ought all to be taken into consideration in construing any one of them.... United States v. Freeman, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 556, 564-65, 11 L.Ed. 724 (1845); see also Holt v. United States, 565 A.2d 970, 975 (D.C.1989) (en banc); Winters, supra, 596 A.2d at 581 (Ferren, J. concurring). If § 24-431(a) were to be construed, as Luck suggests, to apply to a pre-Act parole term every time that a recomputation of the prisoner's term is fortuitously conducted after the effective date of the Act, such a construction would effectively and retroactively nullify the unambiguous terms of § 24-206(a) as to parole terms which were governed solely by that section prior to April 1987. Since, as we have noted, Luck's construction of § 24-431(a) is not supported by its plain language, and since there are several plausible interpretations of § 24-431(a), [6] we conclude that Luck is really asking us to find that § 24-431(a) has effected a retroactive pro tanto implied repeal of § 24-206. This we are not prepared to do.