Williams v. PuckettWilliams v. Puckett
Here we are asked to examine our statutory scheme in relation to parole eligibility, “earned time“,1 consecutive sentences and mandatory sentences and find that the Department of Corrections is in error in сalculating both the date of eligibility for parole and the date of presumptive release for Williams based on earned time commutation. Williams’ contentions find some support in the plain language of the controlling statutes. Nevertheless, we рay deference to the construction utilized by the administering agencies and our prior decisions and reject his claim.
I
On February 7, 1985, Appellant Danny Williams was arrested in connection with an armed robbery. At the time, Williams was serving five years’ probation on a 1984 conviction for uttering forgery. Williams’ probation on the five-year sentence was revoked on February 15, 1985. He was sentenced to serve out the five years on the forgery charge.
On February 28, 1985, Williams was indicted by the Panola County Grand Jury for armed robbery. Williams pleaded guilty to the armed robbery charge on October 28, 1985, and the court sentenced him to ten years to be served consecutively with his earlier five-year sentence for forgery. In accordance with
On January 30, 1991, Williams filed in the Sunflower County Circuit Court a “Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus or in the Alternative Motiоn to Show Cause.” He claimed the date he had been scheduled for earned-time release by the Mississippi Department of Corrections contravened the guidelines set forth in the Mississippi Code. He sought to have the Sunflower County Circuit Court enter an оrder mandating that the Department of Corrections recompute his earned-time release date. Williams argued that the Mississippi Department of Corrections had erred in the treatment of his jail sentences for purposes of calculating his parole and earned-time release dates.
The MDOC had scheduled Williams to be eligible for parole on April 27, 1996, and earned-time release on January 13, 1998. Williams’ probation on his five-year forgery sentence was revoked on February 15, 1985. He was given nineteen days credit for the time he spent in jail after being arrested for forgery and armed robbery in Panola County. The MDOC, therefore, slated January 27, 1985, as the day Williams technically began serving his five-year forgery sentence. They calculated his earliest possible parole date by figuring that Williams would have to serve at least one-quarter of his five-year forgery sentence (one year and three months) plus all ten years on his armed robbery sentence, since he was not eligible for parole on that term. The MDOC considered Williams to be serving his five-year sentence through the day he became officially eligible for parole on that sentence. That day, one year and three months from January 27, 1985, was April 27, 1986. Using this logic, the Department of Corrections designated April 27, 1996 as Williams’ parole date.
As of April 27, 1986, Williams had thirteen years and nine months official jail time left to serve — the ten-year sentence plus the balance of the five-year sentence. To compute Williams’ earned-time release dаte, the MDOC added that remaining jail time to April 27, 1986, and subtracted the good time Williams had been credited with through April 27, 1986. The date arrived at was January 13, 1998.
Williams asserted that these calculations resulted from an erroneous application of the parolе and earned-time statutes and that he should have been eligible for release in ten
A hearing was held on June 18, 1991, before Fourth Circuit Magistrate Betty Sanders. At the сlose of the hearing, the magistrate found as follows:
[Williams] began his first sentence, five years for forgery, on January 27, 1985 and was eligible for parole on April 27, 1986. One fourth (1/4) of his sentence,
MISS. CODE ANN., Section 47-7-3 (Supp. 1990). He accumulated enough earned time to complete the five-year sentence on January 12, 1988. The 10 year mandatory sentence was then added changing his projected discharge date to January 13, 1998, with a parole eligibility date of April 27, 1996. Petitioner has accumulated no meritorious earned time.2
The magistrаte recommended that Williams’ case be dismissed with prejudice. On July 18, 1991, the Panola County Circuit Court entered an order adopting the findings and recommendations of the magistrate. Williams timely filed notice of appeal to this court.
II
Relying on Mississippi Code Annotated
Williams suggests that, under
Section 47-7-3(1)(d) of the Mississippi Code makes armed robbery convicts sentenced to a “term or terms” in excess of ten (10) years eligible for parole after ten years.
The problem with Williams’ suggested construction of
More recently, in Milam v. State, 578 So.2d 272 (Miss. 1991), this Court had occasion to speak to the question of the proper treatment of consecutive sentences, one of which is a mandatory sentence for which no parole is available. There, the defendant Milam pleaded guilty to separate charges of armed robbery and manslaughter. 578 So.2d at 272. The circuit court sentencеd him to consecutive terms of ten years for armed robbery and fifteen years for manslaughter. Id. at 272-73. During Milam‘s incarceration, the MDOC informed him of his parole eligibility date and Milam claimed that computation was in error, because it did not allow him credit for “goоd time” he had accrued during the years he had been incarcerated on his ten-year armed robbery sentence. Id.
We held that Milam‘s parole date, without reference to good time, had been calculated in accordance with Mississippi law. Id. at 273-74. The Court said in part:
It goes without saying that, when a person is by express order providing therefor sentenced to serve consecutive terms, imprisonment on the second, or each subsequent conviction, shall commence at the completion of the serviсe of the term for the preceding conviction.
Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-21 (1972). His parole eligibility is a function of the law‘s response to those consecutive sentences. Davis v. State, 429 So.2d 262, 263 (Miss. 1983).
Id. at 274. The Court went on to hold that Milam would have to serve the full ten years on the armed robbery sentencе and then one fourth of the fifteen-year manslaughter sentence to become eligible for parole. See 578 So.2d at 274.
Finally, in Davis v. State, 429 So.2d 262 (Miss. 1983), we held that the convict was required to serve 30 years for parole eligibility for three consecutive life sentences.
Williams claims that the wording of
We do not consider this an open issue, however, given the fact that the interpretation given the statute by the agency chosen to administer it should be accorded deference. Gill v. Dept. of Wildlife Conservation, 574 So.2d 586, 593 (Miss. 1990). Here, the parole board interpretation has operated with our implicit approval for fifteen years. See, Taylor, 365 So.2d 621. If that interpretation is in еrror it should be corrected by the legislature. Given the law as presently interpreted the Department of Corrections has correctly calculated Williams’ date of eligibility for parole.
Turning now to the question of earned time, we must analyze that stаtute in view of the fact that parole eligibility is established at eleven years and three months. We see first that regardless of how earned time is calculated the limitation expressed in
First, the statute provides that an offender “under two (2) or more consecutive sentences shall be allowed commutation bаsed upon the total of the term of the sentences.”
The provision in question was adopted in 1992. It appears to be, however, a mere codification of the prevailing administrative construction and practice approved by this Court. Milam v. State, 578 So.2d 272; Cooper v. State, 439 So.2d 1277 (Miss. 1983). Out of deference to the agency charged with administering the statute and to stare decisis, we are obliged to leave that practice undisturbed.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the circuit court denying Williams’ petition for post-conviction relief is affirmed.
LOWER COURT‘S DENIAL OF POSTCONVICTION RELIEF AFFIRMED.
HAWKINS, C.J., DAN M. LEE and PRATHER, P.JJ., and SULLIVAN, PITTMAN, McRAE, SMITH and JAMES L. ROBERTS, Jr., JJ., concur.