Court Opinion

ID: 9563887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:49:13.687153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:06.982193
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Judge,
dissenting.
The trial judge ruled that he lacked jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 1:1 to consider appellant’s motion to modify his penitentiary sentence almost four years after the suspended sentence was revoked and imposed. In my opinion the trial judge ruled correctly. Therefore, I would affirm the judgment of the trial *245court. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision.
Under familiar principles, penal statutes must be strictly construed against the Commonwealth. However, when statutory construction is required, we construe a statute to promote the end for which it is enacted, if such an interpretation can reasonably be made from the language used. Thus, a statute should be read to give reasonable effect to the words used “and to promote the ability of the enactment to remedy the mischief at which it is directed.” “Where a particular construction of a statute will result in an absurdity, some other reasonable construction which will not produce the absurdity will be found.”
Mayhew v. Commonwealth, 20 Va.App. 484, 489, 458 S.E.2d 305, 307 (1995).
The majority construes and applies Code § 19.2-303 so broadly that the holding essentially abolishes the preclusive effect of Rule 1:1 by allowing courts to modify sentences in all criminal convictions without any time limitation except when a defendant has been actually transferred to a receiving unit of the Department of Corrections. In my opinion, the majority’s construction of Code § 19.2-303 results in criminal convictions that should otherwise be final remaining open to modification despite Rule 1:1. The majority’s holding does not promote the end for which the statute was intended.
As the majority notes, Code § 19.2-303 creates an exception to Rule 1:1, however, in my opinion, the exception only applies to allow a judge to modify a sentence where the prisoner remains in the local jail and under the control of the court. The operative language of the statute, “but has not been transferred to a receiving unit” implies that the prisoner is in the local jail awaiting transfer. (Emphasis added.) In other words, underlying Code § 19.2-303 is the presumption that the prisoner is awaiting transfer to the Department of Corrections from the local jail and that the trial court can still exercise jurisdiction over the prisoner beyond the twenty-one days prescribed in Rule 1:1. This view that Code § 19.2-303 *246applies only where the prisoner is in the local jail finds support in numerous cases that have analyzed Code § 19.2-303 on other grounds. In Esparza v. Commonwealth, 29 Va.App. 600, 513 S.E.2d 885 (1999), we stated,
[i]n sum, we hold that Code § 19.2-303 invests courts with discretionary authority to modify a sentence post-conviction in all felony cases, including those in which the defendant has been sentenced pursuant to a plea agreement so long as the defendant is in the local jail and has not been delivered to the Department of Corrections.
Id. at 608, 513 S.E.2d at 889 (emphasis added). Similarly, in Rice v. Virginia Sate Bar, 267 Va. 299, 592 S.E.2d 643 (2004), the Court noted that “[pjursuant to Code § 19.2-303, [a] sentence reduction was possible only so long as [the prisoner] remained in the local jail.” Id. at 299, 592 S.E.2d at 644 (emphasis added). In Ziats v. Commonwealth, 42 Va.App. 133, 590 S.E.2d 117 (2003), the issue of jurisdiction beyond the twenty-one days turned on “[wjhether Ziats was in the custody of the local sheriff, and not in the custody of the DOC----” Id. at 139, 590 S.E.2d at 120 (emphasis added). See also Patterson v. Commonwealth, 39 Va.App. 610, 619, 575 S.E.2d 583, 587 (2003) (distinguishing Robertson v. Superintendent of Wise Correctional Unit, 248 Va. 232, 445 S.E.2d 116 (1994), noting that Robertson “remained in the local jail ” when the trial court modified his sentence beyond the twenty-one days (emphasis added)).
Neely made a motion for the trial court to reconsider his sentence almost four years after the court had entered the final order revoking his previously suspended sentence. At the time, he was in federal prison in Virginia. The majority’s view that the court had the authority to modify Neely’s sentence pursuant to Code § 19.2-303 almost four years after the court had imposed the sentence, only because Neely had “not actually been transferred to the Department” of Corrections, when he was not in the local jail and, thus, not before the court would allow prisoners who are being held in other jurisdictions with unserved sentences in Virginia to require courts to reconsider their sentences regardless of how much *247time elapsed. Such a result enlarges the exception to Rule 1:1 far beyond what was intended and could well impose an unnecessary burden upon trial courts.
Therefore, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court because, in my opinion, the trial court lost jurisdiction twenty-one days after entry of the order revoking Neely’s suspended sentence. I respectfully dissent.