Court Opinion

ID: 9621647
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:03:06.361499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:26.032308
License: Public Domain

Justice NEWBY
concurring in the result.
The question at the heart of this appeal is whether the General Assembly intended to eliminate life sentences by legislation enacted in 1974. A thorough analysis of that legislation reveals that the General Assembly never abolished life sentences. In fact, the legislature exhibited an affirmative intent to retain life imprisonment as a special sentence status. Because the administration of the relevant statutory mandates by the Department of Correction (“DOC”) has been in consistent harmony with this legislative intent and with inmates’ constitutional rights, it is not the place of the courts to overturn DOC’s policy of treating life inmates differently from other prisoners.
I agree with the majority’s ultimate holding that Jones is lawfully incarcerated. More specifically, I concur in the conclusion that DOC *261has acted in accordance with its statutory grant of authority, and I agree further that Jones does not have any due process liberty interest in having his good time, gain time, or merit time credits applied to his sentence for purposes of calculating an unconditional release date. I write separately to express my belief that this latter conclusion is true for all inmates sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes committed between 8 April 1974 and 30 June 1978.1 also write to provide a broader response to Jones’s contention that his continued incarceration represents a violation of his right to equal protection of the laws.
As noted by the majority, the trial court found as fact that “[t]he Department of Correction has never used good time, gain time, or merit time credits in the calculation of unconditional release dates for inmates who received sentences of life imprisonment.” (Emphasis added.) This finding was based on competent testimony from respondent Alvin Keller, Secretary of DOC, and from. Teresa O’Brien, an employee in DOC’s Combined Records Section.3 “[Findings of fact made by the trial judge are conclusive on appeal if supported by competent evidence, even if . . . there is evidence to the contrary.” Sisk v. Transylvania Cmty. Hosp., Inc., 364 N.C. 172, 179, 695 S.E.2d 429, 434 (2010) (alterations in original) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, this Court is bound by the finding that DOC has never applied good time, gain time, or merit time credits to calculate an unconditional release date for any inmate sentenced to life imprisonment.
Moreover, the majority correctly concludes that neither the General Statutes nor DOC’s regulations give Jones any right to have his time credits applied for purposes of unconditional release. In general, we accord significant deference to the manner in which a statute is interpreted by the executive agency charged with enforcing it, Frye Reg’l Med. Ctr., Inc. v. Hunt, 350 N.C. 39, 45, 510 S.E.2d 159, 163 (1999) (citation omitted), and we give controlling weight to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations unless that interpretation is “plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation[s],” *262Morrell v. Flaherty, 338 N.C. 230, 238, 449 S.E.2d 175, 180 (1994) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1122, 115 S. Ct. 2278, 132 L. Ed. 2d 282 (1995). DOC has never read the relevant statutes and regulations as requiring application of time credits to calculate unconditional release dates for life inmates. Given that those statutes and regulations make no attempt to set forth the specific purposes for which time credits are to be applied, DOC’s interpretations are reasonable and worthy of deference so long as they are constitutionally sound.
Jones contends that he has a due process liberty interest in having liis good time, gain time, and merit time credits applied for unconditional release purposes. However, as demonstrated above, the relevant statutes and regulations do not give inmates sentenced to life imprisonment any such right, nor has DOC vested life inmates with such a right through its manner of administering those statutes and regulations. Thus, life inmates like Jones can claim no liberty interest in having time credits applied to calculate their unconditional release dates.
Jones argues further: “The unequal treatment of Mr. Jones’ sentence, and that of other inmates in the Bowden-ctass, amounts to a classic violation of equal protection laws.” (Emphasis added.) The “Bowden-class” of inmates to which Jones refers is the group of inmates sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes committed between 8 April 1974 and 30 June 1978. Jones goes on to contend that “[his] life sentence is identical to a term of 80-years.” (Emphasis added.) In other words, Jones argues that life sentences imposed under the 1974 version of section 14-2 are indistinguishable from ordinary term-of-years sentences and that DOC has, therefore, violated equal protection by treating his class of life inmates differently from term-of-years inmates. While I do not disagree with the majority’s equal protection analysis, I believe there is a more direct way to respond to Jones’s precise argument.
Jones’s contention that his class of life inmates is no different from term-of-years inmates ignores the fact that section 14-2 does not abolish life sentences or render them indistinguishable from ordinary term-of-years sentences. Rather, in providing a definition for “[a] sentence of life imprisonment,” section 14-2 explicitly retains life imprisonment as a special sentence status. N.C.G.S. § 14-2 (Cum. Supp. 1974). Moreover, the session law that gave rise to section 14-2 utilizes the sentence status of life imprisonment eight times, Act of Apr. 8, 1974, ch. 1201, 1973 N.C. Sess. Laws 323, and in six of those *263instances the General Assembly set forth the life sentence as an available punishment for a specific crime, id., secs. 1-4, 7, at 323-24. This continued use of the distinct sentence status of life imprison-, ment is hardly the manner in which one would expect the legislature to abolish life sentences or convert them to term-of-years sentences for all purposes.
Based on the General Assembly’s intent to continue distinguishing life sentences (even those with an unconditional release date of eighty years) from term-of-years sentences, Jones is similarly situated to other life inmates, not to term-of-years inmates. As the trial court found, DOC has never used time credits to calculate unconditional release dates for inmates sentenced to life imprisonment. Thus, DOC has not subjected Jones to disparate treatment in comparison with other similarly situated inmates. Jones and other inmates sentenced to life imprisonment have been treated differently from ordinary term-of-years inmates, but the Supreme Court of the United States has said that if a law involving disparate treatment does not infringe upon a fundamental right or target a suspect class, the classification is permissible as long as it bears a rational relation to some legitimate end. Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 319-20, 113 S. Ct. 2637, 2642, 125 L. Ed. 2d 257, 270 (1993) (citations omitted). Jones has not demonstrated any right, let alone a fundamental right, to have his time credits applied to his sentence for all possible purposes, nor has he shown that inmates sentenced to life imprisonment are a suspect class. Because DOC’s disparate treatment of life inmates relative to term-of-years inmates is rationally related to the legitimate State ends of punishing heinous crimes with greater severity and ensuring public safety, Jones’s equal protection claim fails.
Having stated the foregoing, I concur in the result of the majority’s opinion.
Justice BRADY joins in this concurring opinion.

. Respondent Keller testified that DOC’s regulations have “never been understood to require awards of gain time towards unconditional release of inmates with life sentences” and that “good and gain time credits have never been applied to calculate an unconditional release date for any inmate with a life sentence imposed for a crime committed before 1 July 1981, which includes the Bowden group of inmates.” Ms. O’Brien testified: “Good behavior credits, which include good, gain, and merit time, have never been applied to life sentences in order to calculate an expiration or unconditional release date.”