Opinion ID: 2196695
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Current Situation and This Case

Text: We noted earlier that the 1992 law was one of two enactments that affected the method by which good conduct credits were to be calculated. The second came with 1994 Md. Laws, ch. 712. The major thrust of the bill, a comprehensive one which emanated from the legislatively-created Committee to Revise Article 27, was to repeal the existing statutes dealing with burglary and breaking offenses in favor of new statutory offenses. One of the statutes repealed was § 30(b) of Article 27, which made the breaking of a dwelling in the daytime with intent to commit murder, felony, or theft a felony carrying a maximum penalty of ten years. In its place, the offense of breaking into a dwelling, either at night or during the daytime, with the intent to commit theft or a crime of violence was made first degree burglary, carrying a penalty of 20 years (new § 29), and the offense of breaking into a dwelling with intent to commit any crime was made third degree burglary, with a possible punishment of 10 years (new § 31). Consistently with its repeal of the existing offense of daytime housebreaking, the Legislature amended § 643B(a) to remove that offense (and burglary as well) from the list of crimes of violence. In one sense, the deletion of daytime housebreaking was simply a conforming amendment. Section 643B(a) included as a crime of violence daytime housebreaking under § 30(b) of this article, and, with the repeal of § 30(b), no such crime would exist. As a policy matter, the Legislature decided not to include any of the new burglary or breaking offenses in § 643B, which, in subsections (b) and (c), provided a mandatory sentence, without possibility of parole, of 25 years for persons convicted a third time of a crime of violence and a mandatory life sentence, without possibility of parole, for persons convicted a fourth time of such a crime. [1] The Act took effect October 1, 1994. In § 3, the General Assembly specified that the changes that are made to Article 27, § 643B of the Code by this Act shall apply prospectively only to defendants who are sentenced after the effective date of this Act and may not be construed to apply in any way to defendants who are sentenced before the effective date of this Act. On August 11, 1992, respondent, Thomas Scott, was convicted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City of daytime housebreaking, for which he was sentenced to ten years in prison, none of it to be served. The court suspended nine years, eight months, and twelve days of the sentence in favor of five years of probation and, by dating the sentence back to April 30, 1992, gave him credit for an additional three months and eleven days. On May 26, 1993, apparently as a result of a new burglary charge, Scott was found in violation of his probation, whereupon the court lifted the suspension it had previously ordered and directed that two years of the sentence be served and that eight years of it remain in suspension. Four years of probation was attached to the newly suspended part of the sentence. In June, 1993, the District Court found Scott in violation of a probation that it had previously imposed on a theft conviction and directed execution of a sentence of 18 months, less 60 days for time already served, to be served consecutively to any other sentence. In July, 1993, Scott received a concurrent 90-day sentence from the District Court for making a false statement to a police officer, and, in August, 1993, he received a consecutive 18-month sentence from the Circuit Court for Baltimore City for the new burglary. Like daytime housebreaking, burglary, at the time, was a crime of violence under § 643B. Both the Division of Correction and the courts below regarded the 10-year sentence as having been imposed (or reimposed) in May, 1993 and the District Court sentence for theft as having been imposed in June, 1993, notwithstanding that those sentences had actually been imposed earlier. The various sentences that now brought Scott to the Division of Correction aggregated 58 months (24 months for daytime housebreaking, plus 16 months (net) resulting from the violation of probation, plus 18 months for the burglary). The Division of Correction deducted 290 good conduct credits (five per month for 58 months) and thus determined Scott's mandatory supervision release date to be May 31, 1997. Scott was released on parole in September, 1994. Although the Maryland Parole Commission issued a parole violation warrant in October, 1995, Scott was not apprehended until February, 1997, when he was arrested for assault and a handgun violation. Those charges were nol prossed, but his parole was revoked and he was returned to the Division of Correction in April, 1997. Scott had been on parole for 956 days. The Parole Commission allowed him 212 days of street time, leaving 744 days to be served. That put his maximum expiration release date at April 9, 2000. After allowing him 55 days of work task credits and good conduct credits at the rate of five days a month, the Division determined that his mandatory release date would be November 9, 1998. At the time, the probation imposed in May, 1993, in connection with the August, 1992 conviction for daytime housebreaking had not been declared violated, and no part of the eight years of the sentence that had been suspended was ordered executed. In that regard, Scott's situation is unlike that of Fields. [2] In February, 1998, Scott filed a petition for habeas corpus, in which he complained that he should have received good conduct credits at the rate of 10 days a month and that, if that credit were applied, he would be entitled to immediate release on mandatory supervision. Judge Beachley, sitting in the Circuit Court for Washington County, found Scott's situation substantively indistinguishable from that of Fields. He noted our holding in Fields that Fields was entitled to 10 days a month credit on the reimposition of the five years that had originally been suspended in conjunction with Fields's sentence for housebreaking and determined that this passage resolves the instant case. Implicit in the Fields opinion, he said, is that an inmate serving time for daytime housebreaking is entitled to ten [good conduct credits] per month as long as the term of confinement is imposed after October 1, 1992. Thus, he continued, [b]ecause Scott's term of confinement was imposed after October 1, 1992 and because housebreaking was deleted as an Art. 27 § 643B crime of violence effective October 1, 1994Scott is entitled to ten [good conduct credits] per month for any and all portions of his sentence after October 1, 1994. Judge Beachley determined, in light of Fields, that Scott should receive credits of 5 days a month for the 16-month period from May 26, 1993 to September 30, 1994, and ten days a month for the succeeding 42 months. Applying the credits in that manner, Judge Beachley determined that Scott's mandatory supervision release date was April 12, 1998. As his decision was rendered in June, 1998, he concluded that Scott was entitled to immediate release, and so ordered. The Court of Special Appeals agreed with Judge Beachley that Fields controlled. It read Fields as concluding that Fields's good conduct credits accrued at the rate of ten days per month for Fields's post-October 1, 1992 conviction for daytime housebreaking. Moats v. Scott, No. 1402, September Term, 1999, filed May 20, 1999, at 6 (unreported). The appellate court found that the facts in Scott's case were almost identical, that [t]he suspended portion of [Scott's] sentence for daytime housebreaking was reimposed on 24 May 1993 and that he was entitled, as was Fields, to good conduct credits calculated at the rate of ten days per month. Id. (emphasis added). Scott maintains that view. He asserts to us that [t]he courts below were right in affording [him] the same relief this Court afforded Fields. There are two problems with the result and the analysis. One problem is that this case is not the same as Fields. Fields was based on the proposition that, when the court revoked Fields's probation and directed execution of the previously suspended five-year segment of the sentence for daytime housebreaking, it had, after October 1, 1992, reimposed a five-year sentence, which thus carried the higher 10-day a month credit. That did not occur in Scott's case. As noted, Scott's probation was not revoked until March, 1998, and, even then, no part of the previously suspended eight-year segment remained to be served. The only effect that Scott's sentence for daytime housebreaking had upon his return to the Division of Correction in April, 1997, was the disallowance of 744 days of street time, which Scott would be required to serve on the unexpired part of the August, 1992 original sentence. That distinction, alone, would not direct a different result, however. As Judge Beachley correctly noted, we directed that Fields receive 10 days a month on the unsuspended part of the daytime housebreaking sentence even though the supposed reimposition of that sentence occurred in May, 1994five months before the 1994 enactment that removed daytime housebreaking as a crime of violence under § 643B took effect. If we chose to ignore both the effective date of that ActOctober 1, 1994and § 2 of it, making that provision prospective only, Judge Beachley could hardly be criticized for effectively doing the same thing. He did point out the Fields paradox in which the inmate received ten [good conduct credits] per month effective May, 1994, some five months before daytime housebreaking was deleted as a crime of violence. That, indeed, is the more significant problem. The particular passage from Fields relied upon was, unfortunately, legally incorrect. It was incorrect for two reasons. First, it was based on a misunderstanding of the effect of the revocation of Fields's probation and the lifting of the suspension of the five-year portion of the sentence. We regarded that five-year term as being reimposed in May, 1994, and thus as constituting a post-1992 sentence, when, in fact, the entire 10-year sentence was imposed in 1988 and no part of it was ever reimposed. The second error was in failing to recognize that, by virtue of § 2 of the 1994 enactment, the amendment made by that Act to § 643B did not affect any person sentenced for daytime housebreaking or burglary prior to October 1, 1994. As to all such persons, including Fields and Scott, daytime housebreaking and burglary remained crimes of violence under § 643B. In neither case was there a new sentence, imposed after October 1, 1994, for those offenses. Scott's sentence for daytime housebreaking was imposed in August, 1992, and, at that time, daytime housebreaking was a crime of violence, carrying good conduct credits at the rate of five days per month. Similarly, his consecutive 18-month sentence for burglary was imposed in August, 1993, when burglary also constituted a crime of violence. In accordance with the plain language of the prospectivity section of the 1994 enactment, Scott was entitled to only five days a month good conduct credit on those sentences. Scott was not entitled to be released on habeas corpus in June, 1998, because the Division of Correction was correct in its application of good conduct credits. The Division agreed, however, that, under its method of calculation, Scott was entitled to be released on mandatory supervision in November, 1998. As to him, therefore, the issue of release appears to be presently moot. The issue may or may not have significance if Scott gets into further difficulty and his mandatory supervision release is revoked. We shall therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals and direct that it remand the case to Judge Beachley for an order denying the petition for habeas corpus. JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS VACATED; CASE REMANDED TO THAT COURT WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REMAND CASE TO JUDGE BEACHLEY FOR ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS; COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONER, UNLESS WAIVED.