Court Opinion

ID: 9741294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:52:53.848184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:23.288455
License: Public Domain

Williams, J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part). This Court is called upon to decide whether or not the Prison Overcrowding Emergency Powers Act, 1980 PA 519, approved by the Governor, *198January 26, 1981, unconstitutionally contravenes the Governor’s exclusive power of commutation under Const 1963, art 5, § 14.
The Legislature presumably acted under the specific power granted them to provide for indeterminate sentences. Const 1963, art 4, § 45 provides:
"The legislature may provide for indeterminate sentences as puriishment for crime and for the detention and release of persons imprisoned or detained under such sentences.”
1980 PA 519 in § 4 provides:
"Unless the governor finds within 15 calendar days of the commission’s request under section 3 that the commission acted in error, the governor shall declare a prison overcrowding state of emergency within that 15 days and the minimum sentences of all prisoners who have established minimum prison terms shall be reduced by 90 days by the director of the department of corrections.” MCL 800.74; MSA 28.1437(4).
Under art 4, § 45 there should be no question but that the Legislature could prospectively provide for an indeterminate sentence based upon the conditions of release specified in 1980 PA 519, § 4. See People v Cook, 147 Mich 127, 131; 110 NW 514 (1907), upholding the constitutionality of the indeterminate sentencing act, 1905 PA 184. In this manner a sentencing judge would know that any sentence imposed was liable to future 90-day reductions under act 519, much as this same judge can anticipate later "good time” or "special good time” reductions. That being the case, there is no constitutional infirmity in a prospective application of 1980 PA 519 because it does not interfere with the Governor’s power to commute after judicial sentencing.
*199The problem actually raised in this case, however, is whether 1980 PA 519 can constitutionally require the Governor to declare a state of emergency, thus setting in motion the process resulting in the reduction of the sentences of persons who were sentenced before that act went into effect and whose sentences therefore obviously were not conditioned upon this legislation. The Legislature, as shown by the task force study, was concerned with finding an emergency solution for a lingering condition. In other words, this Court must determine whether the Legislature has the power to mandate the reduction of certain minimum sentences already judicially imposed. It does not for two reasons.
First, art 4, § 45 contemplates prospective legislation only. It provides in pertinent part: "The legislature may provide for indeterminate sentences as punishment for crime and for the detention and release of persons imprisoned or detained under such sentences”. Do the emphasized words mean that § 45 intended that the Legislature may release by reduction of sentence persons already judicially sentenced? While superficially such an interpretation is arguable, closer analysis compels an opposite conclusion. Importantly, the section pertinently reads: "The Legislature may provide * * * for the detention and release”. Obviously the powers of "detention” and "release” must be read together, and the Legislature could therefore not provide for "release” where it could not analogously provide for "detention”. In other words, since it is obvious that the Legislature was not authorized by § 45 to increase the detention of persons by legislation enacted after their judicial sentencing, then also it could not shorten the actual term of sentence. As a consequence, it must *200be assumed that § 45 was intended to be construed prospectively, as a retrospective construction runs contrary to other constitutional provisions.
Second, it is basic statutory interpretation that a statute will not be construed in a way that would make it unconstitutional. Construing art 4, § 45 as done in the preceding paragraph, interpreting 1980 PA 519 as mandating that the Governor shall reduce sentences, imposed at a time when there was no condition of that sentence that it might be reduced because of prison overcrowding, invades the Governor’s right of commutation. Art 5, § 14 provides:
"The governor shall have power to grant reprieves, commutations and pardons after convictions for all offenses, except cases of impeachment, upon such conditions and limitations as he may direct, subject to procedures and regulations prescribed by law.”
It is clear that § 4 of 1980 PA 519, retroactively mandating a 90-day reduction of minimum sentences, would usurp the Governor’s exclusive power of commutation unless it were part of the Legislature’s power of indeterminate sentencing, which this opinion has just held it is not where it is retroactive. As a consequence, to maintain the constitutionality of the statute, it is held that the § 4 90-day reduction of sentences imposed before the approval date of 1980 PA 519 is discretionary rather than mandatory as far as the Governor’s action is concerned. Viewed in this manner, the retroactive application of 1980 PA 519 is a procedural device for bringing to the Governor’s attention prison overcrowding problems which may be relieved through the discretionary exercise of the chief executive’s commutation power.
It may be argued that the phrase in art 5, § 14, *201which provides that the Governor’s commutation power is "subject to procedures and regulations prescribed by law”, permits such a law as 1980 PA 519 to infringe on this power. However, that phrase serves only to channel the way in which a Governor exercises his or her discretion to grant commutation, rather than requiring him or her to in fact exercise or not exercise that power with respect to any particular subject.
In conclusion it is held that art 4, § 45 permits 1980 PA 519 to be constitutional with respect to sentences judicially imposed subsequent to January 26, 1981, the date of act 519’s approval by the Governor; however, with respect to sentences imposed prior thereto, 1980 PA 519 is constitutional only insofar as the Governor’s actions which trigger sentence reductions are discretionary rather than mandatory.