Court Opinion

ID: 9621648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:03:06.366675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:26.035475
License: Public Domain

Justice TIMMONS-GOODSON
dissenting.
The rule of law, consistency, and fundamental fairness are not advanced by today’s decision allowing the Department of Correction (DOC) to withhold inmate Alford Jones’s accumulated sentence reduction credits. This decision violates the DOC’s own regulations and policies, Jones’s constitutional rights, and the doctrine of separation of powers. And by doing so, I fear that a cornerstone of our legal system, the writ of habeas corpus, is devalued. The undisputed' *264record reflects that Jones has fully served his term of imprisonment and is thereby entitled to immediate unconditional release. The decision to the contrary offends all notions of fundamental fairness. I therefore respectfully dissent.
This case arises out of a mistake of law by the DOC that it now seeks to rectify through unwritten, retrospective policy pronouncements some thirty-five years after the fact. The DOC says the department believed that the “life” sentence imposed upon Jones was a sentence of natural life rather than the eighty-year sentence he was actually serving. The DOC awarded Jones sentence reduction credits but putatively believed that those credits would only shorten Jones’s sentence in the event of a commutation by the governor. Expecting that the sentence reduction credits earned by Jones would never be utilized, the DOC continued to award Jones sentence reduction credits pursuant to DOC policies and regulations without placing any limitations upon the use of such credits.
This Court’s 1978 decisions in State v. Richardson and State v. Williams cast doubt on the grounds upon which the DOC based its belief that N.C.G.S. § 14-2 meant natural life rather than a determinate eighty-year sentence. The nature and timing of the decisions put the DOC on notice that sentence reduction credits for Jones should diminish his eighty-year sentence. In Richardson, this court determined that “[a] sentence of life imprisonment shall be considered as a sentence of imprisonment for a term of 80 years” and that pre-conviction incarceration credits should be applied to reduce the defendant’s 100 year sentence, which included an eighty-year life sentence. State v. Richardson, 295 N.C. 309, 318-20, 245 S.E.2d 754, 760-61 (1978). Similarly, in Williams, this Court upheld the defendant’s sentence of 300 years in prison, which was comprised in part by three consecutive eighty-year life sentences. State v. Williams, 295 N.C. 655, 679-80, 249 S.E.2d 709, 725 (1978). In neither case did the State, under which the DOC’s interests are represented, argue that the proper interpretation of a life sentence under section 14-2 is natural life.
Despite our decisions in Richardson and Williams, it was only after inmate Bobby Bowden filed a writ of habeas corpus — contesting the lawfulness of his continued incarceration and requesting immediate release from his sentence — that the DOC altered the nature of the sentence reduction credits awarded to Jones, Bowden, and other similarly situated inmates. See State v. Bowden, 193 N.C. App. 597, 598, 668 S.E.2d 107, 108 (2008), disc. rev. improvidently *265allowed, 363 N.C. 621, 683 S.E.2d 208 (2009). Specifically, the Court of Appeals observed that the DOC’s records for Bowden initially “indicated that all of [his] good conduct time, merit time, and gain time credits had been applied to his sentence.” Id. at 598, 668 S.E.2d at 108. Curiously, and “for reasons unclear to [the Court of Appeals], the Department of Correction later retroactively changed the status of [Bowden’s] sentence reduction credits from ‘applied’ to ‘pending.’ ” Id. Subsequent statements of policy by the DOC and other executive branch officials also cut against the letter of the DOC’s regulations for awarding sentence reduction credits.
The question for this Court is therefore whether the DOC may now legally withhold the credits it has awarded Jones. In order to answer this question, I first examine the nature of Jones’s interest in his sentence reduction credits.
The United States Supreme Court has explained that, although an inmate’s “rights may be diminished by the needs and exigencies of the institutional environment, a prisoner is not wholly stripped of constitutional protections when he is imprisoned for crime. There is no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555-56, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935, 950 (1974); see also State v. Primes, 314 N.C. 202, 208, 333 S.E.2d 278, 281 (1985) (stating that “basic constitutional rights adhere inside as well as outside the prison walls” (citations omitted)); Goble v. Bounds, 281 N.C. 307, 311, 188 S.E.2d 347, 349 (1972) (affirming that “a prisoner takes with him into the prison certain rights which may not be denied him”) (citing Lee v. Washington, 390 U.S. 333, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1212 (1968) (per curiam)). Prisoners “may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Wolff, 418 U.S. at 556, 41 L. Ed. 2d at 951 (citations omitted). The United States Supreme Court has specifically recognized that prisoners have a protected liberty interest in avoiding the withdrawal of sentence reduction credits awarded pursuant to state laws or policies. See, e.g., Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209, 221, 162 L. Ed. 2d 174, 189 (2005) (noting that a prisoner’s liberty interest “may arise from an expectation or interest created by state laws or policies” and that prisoners have a “liberty interest in avoiding withdrawal of [a] state-created system of good-time credits” (citing Wolff, 418 U.S. at 556-58, 41 L. Ed. 2d at 950-51)); Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 25, 35-36, 67 L. Ed. 2d 17, 20-21, 27-28 (1981) (determining that a statutory alteration reducing the availability of gain time for inmates’ good conduct violated the prohibition against ex post facto laws and was *266therefore unconstitutional). Thus, when the State creates “a right to a shortened prison sentence through the accumulation of credits for good behavior,” the prisoner has a cognizable liberty interest in the credits that cannot be “arbitrarily abrogated.” Wolff, 418 U.S. at 557, 41 L. Ed. 2d at 951.
In the instant case the General Assembly authorized prison rules and regulations granting “rewards and privileges” to inmates “as an inducement to good conduct.” N.C.G.S. § 148-13 (1974). The General Assembly thereby delegated to the Secretary of Correction the authority to promulgate regulations granting sentence reduction credits. At all relevant times, the statutory authorization to issue regulations has been the only means by which the Secretary of Correction could exercise discretion regarding sentence reduction credits. Accordingly, the Secretary of Correction promulgated regulations awarding good, gain, and merit time to inmates, including Jones, provided the inmates behaved and participated in the requisite programs. In the years since then, Jones has continued to earn sentence reduction credits pursuant to DOC regulations, policies, and procedures. Jones therefore has a protected liberty interest in the sentence reduction credits which were created and awarded to him by the State, through the Secretary of Correction, pursuant to State-created policies, procedures and regulations, that cannot be “arbitrarily abrogated.” Wolff, 418 U.S. at 557, 41 L. Ed. 2d at 951.
Indeed, at oral argument counsel for the DOC agreed that if sentence reduction credits were in fact “awarded” to Jones, he would have a corresponding liberty interest in those credits under Wolff that could not be denied absent procedural due process. However, counsel for the DOC denied that the sentence reduction credits had been awarded to Jones, asserting instead that the credits had only been “stored.” This assertion flatly contradicts the trial court’s finding that Jones “has been awarded good time, gain time, and merit time credits by the Department of Correction based on his conduct and his participation in the [work release and other related] programs.” The DOC has not challenged any of the trial court’s findings of fact and these findings are therefore binding.
Having determined that Jones has a protected liberty interest in the sentence reduction credits awarded him pursuant to State-created regulations and policies, I now consider whether the DOC may legally withhold the sentence reduction credits earned by Jones. The DOC essentially argues that because it has fundamentally misapprehended the nature of Jones’s sentence for the past thirty years, it *267should be allowed to perpetuate its mistake and retroactively eliminate the sentence reduction credits awarded to Jones. This argument flies in the face of bedrock principles securing fundamental fairness in the criminal justice system, including due process and the prohibition against ex post facto laws.
As the majority explains, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that a prisoner’s liberty interest is constitutionally protected by procedural due process when that liberty interest is created by the State. Wolff, 418 U.S. at 555-58, 41 L. Ed. at 950-52. The Court held in Wolff that a prisoner’s liberty interest “has real substance and is sufficiently embraced within Fourteenth Amendment ‘liberty’ to entitle him to those minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances and required by the Due Process Clause to insure that the State-created right is not arbitrarily abrogated.” Id. at 557, 41 L. Ed. at 951. Accordingly, Jones’s liberty interest in the sentence reduction credits cannot be diminished by the DOC without giving an adequate level of process. Yet the DOC provided no process whatsoever before attempting to change the applicability of Jones’s good time, gain time, and merit time credits. The majority effectively concedes that some process is due by suggesting that the parole process is sufficient. However, the opinion leaves unexplained how the discretionary review of parole is relevant in a discussion of sentence reduction credits, a constitutionally protected interest. In the end, by providing no process prior to withholding Jones’s sentence reduction credits, the DOC violated Jones’s constitutional right to procedural due process.
. Moreover, the DOC has no authority to impose a term of imprisonment other than the sentence handed down by the trial court. See State v. Allen, 346 N.C. 731, 737, 488 S.E.2d 188, 191 (1997) (stating that “[t]his Court has already settled that the General Assembly alone prescribes the maximum and minimum punishment which can be imposed on those convicted of crimes” (citation omitted)). The trial court sentenced Jones to a term of life imprisonment, which at the time was defined as a term of eighty years. The DOC is, and was at all times, therefore obligated to treat Jones’s sentence as a determinate sentence of eighty years. To do otherwise violates the doctrine of separation of powers. See Jernigan v. State, 279 N.C. 556, 564, 184 S.E.2d 259, 265 (1971) (“ ‘The manner of executing the sentence and the mitigation of punishment are determined by the legislative department, and what the Legislature has determined in that regard must be put in force and effect by administrative officers.’ ” (quoting *268People v. Joyce, 246 Ill. 124, 135, 92 N.E. 607, 612 (1910))). By defining a life sentence as eighty years, the General Assembly intended Jones to serve an eighty-year determinate sentence. As an inmate serving an eighty-year determinate sentence, like other inmates serving determinate sentences, Jones was entitled under DOC regulations and policies to earn sentence reduction credits for the purpose of shortening his sentence. The DOC’s refusal to recognize the sentence reduction credits awarded to Jones ignores the will and intent of the General Assembly in defining a life sentence as eighty years and in enacting legislation authorizing sentence reduction credits. I would therefore hold that the DOC is without authority to withhold the sentence reduction credits it awarded to Jones.
The majority concludes, however, that Jones is not entitled to the benefit of the sentence reduction credits he has earned. I note that the majority accepts the following facts: (1) Jones was sentenced to a determinate term of imprisonment of eighty years. (2) While incarcerated, Jones earned good time, gain time, and merit time credits (sentence reduction credits) pursuant to DOC regulations and policies. (3) As of 30 November 2009, Jones’s good time credit totaled 14,041 days; his gain time credits totaled 2146 days; and his merit time credit totaled 1745 days. (4) Under DOC regulations and policies, gain time credits and merit time credits are not subject to forfeiture. (5) Good time credits may be forfeited, but only for reasons specified in the DOC regulations, such as major infractions. (6) Under DOC regulations, good time, gain time, and merit time credits operate to reduce the length of an inmate’s sentence. (7) The DOC regulations do not specify or limit the purposes for which sentence reduction credits are awarded.
Despite acknowledgment of these facts, the decision countenances the DOC’s retrospective and unreasonable interpretation of its regulations, thereby abdicating the judiciary’s solemn duty to check arbitrary acts by the other branches. See Long v. Watts, 183 N.C. 99, 113, 110 S.E. 765, 768 (1922) (stating that an independent judiciary must be secure against, inter alia, “the arbitrary authority of the administrative heads of government”). In addition, the majority fails to recognize that the DOC’s position is not based upon any “interpretation” of its regulations. Rather, the DOC’s position contravenes the regulations themselves. Nothing in any relevant provision of the North Carolina General Statutes, the North Carolina Administrative Code, the DOC’s policies, procedures, or regulations, or North Carolina case law precedent specifically authorizes the *269Secretary of Correction to apply the good time, gain time, merit time, or any other awarded credits only for certain purposes and not for others. Simply put, the DOC offers no textual support for its position and neither does the majority.
To the contrary, the DOC plainly sets forth the procedures by which Jones has earned sentence reduction credits. DOC policies and procedures establish “the rules and methods for computing sentence reduction credits in the form of Good Time for satisfactory behavior, Gain and Earned Time for participation in work or program assignments, and Meritorious Time for exemplary acts or for working under emergency conditions, and working overtime or for program achievement.” Div. of Prisons, N.C. Dep’t of Corn, Policy and Procedures ch. B, § .0109 (Oct. 5, 2007). The DOC defines “Sentence Reduction Credits” as “[t]ime credits applied to an inmate’s sentence that reduces the amount of time to be served. These credits are called Good Time, Gain Time, Earned Time and Meritorious Time.” Id., § .0110(f). The provisions do not exclude Jones from earning sentence reduction credits. Notably, the DOC specifically excludes seven categories of inmates from earning good time and gain time, id., §§ .0111(d), .0112(c), yet no exception applies to inmates that received life sentences for offenses committed between 8 April 1974 and 30 June 1978. Nevertheless, the majority now attempts to create and to apply an ad hoc exception to Jones. The DOC’s position unjustifiably requires this Court to read into the applicable provisions limitations that are noticeably/absent and that run counter to the plain and unambiguous language of the provisions. See Britt v. N.C. Sheriffs’ Educ. & Training Standards Comm’n, 348 N.C. 573, 576, 501 S.E.2d 75, 77 (1998) (“When the language of regulations is clear and unambiguous, there is no room for judicial construction, and courts must give the regulations their plain meaning.”). Because there is no support for the DOC’s position in the written regulations and policies — and with all support being to the contrary — the DOC presents no “interpretation of its regulations” to which this Court may defer.
Despite the lack of textual support for the DOC’s position, the majority nonetheless reasons that the DOC has “implicit authority” to determine the purposes for which sentence reduction credits may be awarded and posits that “an award of time by [the] DOC need not be an all-or-nothing award for unlimited uses.” I agree that the Secretary of Correction is fully authorized to “issue regulations” and “adopt rules” limiting the purposes for which sentence reduction credits *270may be applied. N.C.G.S. § 148-13 (2009). However, the Secretary of Correction has not done so in this case. Instead, the Secretary has issued policies, procedures, and regulations regarding the award of sentence reduction credits, under which Jones accrued credits for good time, gain time, and merit time based on his participation in work, study, and other programs. The DOC concedes that the Secretary’s discretion is exercised through the DOC regulations. These provisions and regulations do not permit the Secretary to withhold or withdraw the sentence reduction credits already awarded to Jones, nor do they limit the purposes for which the credits may be applied. And while the DOC need not issue a regulation or rule for every minor detail of prison administration and must be allowed a certain degree of flexibility in interpreting its rules, the DOC, should it desire to limit the purposes for which sentence reduction credits may be applied, must articulate these limitations in the form of written rules, regulations, or policies.
DOC regulations involving sentence reduction credits are not minor. Whether an inmate has fully served his sentence and is entitled to release from imprisonment is a question deeply implicating fundamental constitutional rights. See Wolff, 418 U.S. at 555-58, 41 L. Ed. 2d at 950-52. The majority asserts that Jones’s liberty interest in his sentence reduction credits is “de minimis" and that the State may “control the contours of the liberty interest it creates.” The majority cites no authority for this pronouncement, which conflicts with the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Wolff and Weaver. Accordingly, this Court should reject the DOC’s unwritten, retrospective “interpretation,” which is contrary to Jones’s liberty interest and the unambiguous letter of the relevant regulations and statutes.
Jones does not challenge the DOC’s authority to formulate rules and regulations. He asks only that the DOC abide by them. This Court has recognized that an inmate may “earn” a “right to honor grade status” and is “ ‘entitled’ ” to release after “ ‘full service of his sentence less good, time earned during incarceration.’ ” Goble, 281 N.C. at 311, 188 S.E.2d at 349-50 (emphasis added) (quoting Menechino v. Oswald, 430 F.2d 403, 408 2d Cir. 1970 (1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 1023, 27 L. Ed. 2d 635 (1971)). Jones has earned his sentence reduction credits in accordance with DOC policies and regulations and is now entitled to release. I do not believe that a decision by this Court requiring the DOC to follow its own policies and procedures- — -which the Secretary of Correction is free to alter at any time — usurps or interferes with the power or authority of the DOC.
*271Today’s decision offends common notions of fundamental fairness. For thirty years, Jones has behaved well, participated in prison work release and study programs, and otherwise performed the conditions necessary to earn sentence reduction credits. Now the State refuses to grant Jones the benefit of his efforts. And although the majority claims the DOC does not have “carte blanche” over the administration of prisoners’ sentences, the rejection of Jones’s fundamental liberty interests in favor of the DOC’s “interpretation” of an unwritten and heretofore unarticulated practice is a departure from established principles. One wonders what other unwritten policies the DOC operates under and whether they, too, are supported by law. Today’s decision condones spontaneous rule-making by the DOC that targets individuals retroactively, thereby abdicating this Court’s role as a protector of Constitutional liberty rights.
This is a hard case. The lives of the victim and his family have been forever changed by Jones’s criminal conduct. Public attention has been excited by the possibility of release of those previously committed to life sentences. The late United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes appropriately cautioned against allowing “immediate interests [to] exercise a kind of hydraulic pressure which makes what was previously clear seem doubtful, and before which even well settled principles of law will bend.” N. Securities Co. v. U.S., 193 U.S. 197, 400-01, 48 L. Ed. 679, 726 (1904) (Holmes, J., dissenting). Many would argue that the breaking point has been reached in this case.
Because withholding Jones’s accumulated sentence reduction credits condones spontaneous rule-making by the DOC and violates the DOC’s own regulations, Jones’s constitutional rights, and the doctrine of separation of powers, I would affirm the order of the trial court allowing Jones’s petition for writ of habeas corpus.
Justice HUDSON joins in this dissenting opinion.