Court Opinion

ID: 9730629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:18:26.302139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:08.085857
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur in the opinion of the majority giving ameliorative effect to the General Assembly's 1999 amendment to 1.C. § 35-50-6-3.3. In doing so, however, I must acknowledge that the opinion authored in Winbush v. State, 776 N.E.2d 1219 (Ind.Ct.App.2002), trans. denied, might seem to preclude that concurrence.
In Winbush, we were considering a statutory amendment which permitted suspension of a portion of a minimum sentence when the previous version of the statute did not permit such suspension. We there held:
"Because the amendment would have allowed the trial court to suspend part or all of Russell's minimum sentence, the amended statute would appear to be ameliorative according to the generally accepted definition of ameliorate: 'to make better' See Bumack's Law Dictio-wary 80 (7th ed.1999); Wasster's THirp New - - Dictionary - 67 (1976). However, case law has interpreted an amendment to a statute to be ameliorative only if the maximum penalty under the new version of the statute is shorter than the maximum penalty under the old version of the statute." Winbush, 776 N.E.2d at 1225.
The case before us does not concern a sentencing statute as such. I therefore am of the view that we are free to afford relief to a convicted person with respect to his projected release date without altering the original sentence imposed, whether with regard to the maximum sentence permissible at the time of sentencing or otherwise, e.g. with respect to suspension of a portion of the sentence imposed.
I do not view Indiana Dep't of Envtl. Mgmt. v. Med. Disposal Servs. Inc., 729 N.E.2d 577 (Ind.2000) ("MDSI"), to preclude amelioration in the situation before us. In Winbush, we cited MDSI noting that in that case, our Supreme Court had chosen not to apply the doctrine of amelioration in a ease involving civil penalties for failure to comply with IDEM permit requirements.
The original litigation had finally resolved MDSI's obligation to operate under a permit but had left the matter of civil penalties unresolved. After the original litigation had become final by virtue of the Supreme Court's denial of transfer, but before resolution of the issue of civil penalties for the permit violation, the General Assembly amended the applicable statute and exempted the medical waste disposal activities of MDSI from IDEM permit requirements.
In determining to not relieve MDSI from imposition of civil penalties, the court's holding was premised upon the conclusion that "[the legislature's subsequent legalization of MDSI's activities, however, did not relieve MDSI of the obligation it faced at the time." 729 N.E.2d at 581 (emphasis supplied). This holding was clearly based upon the fact that MDSI's activities were illegal at the time in question and that the civil penalty consequences attached to the illegal acts at the time they were done.
Our situation is wholly unlike that in MDSI. Here the academic achievements of an inmate take place subsequent to his sentencing and incarceration. The impact of education credits is therefore felt prospectively with regard to a projected release date. It does not retroactively alter *873the sentence originally imposed for his criminal acts. For this reason I do not construe MDSI as an impediment to the relief we afford today.