Commonwealth of Ky. v. Love, 2009–SC–000671–DG.

• Decision Date: 24 March 2011
• Docket Number: No. 2009–SC–000671–DG.,2009–SC–000671–DG.
• Citation: 334 S.W.3d 92
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant,v.Raycine LOVE, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

334 S.W.3d 92

COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant,

v.Raycine LOVE, Appellee.

No. 2009–SC–000671–DG.

Supreme Court of Kentucky.

March 24, 2011.

Jack Conway, Attorney General of Kentucky, Joshua D. Farley, Assistant Attorney General, Attorney General's Office, Office of Criminal Appeals, Frankfort, KY, Counsel for Appellant.Karen Shuff Maurer, Assistant Public Advocate, Department of Public Advocacy, Frankfort, KY, Counsel for Appellee.Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice MINTON.

I. INTRODUCTION.

Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 533.040(3) provides, in relevant part, that a sentence of probation “shall run concurrently with any federal ... prison ... term for another offense to which the defendant ... becomes subject during the period, unless the sentence of probation ... is revoked. The revocation shall take place ... within ninety ... days after the grounds for revocation come to the attention of the Department of Corrections....” We granted discretionary review in this case to determine whether KRS 533.040(3) means that probation revocation must be completed—or merely initiated—within that ninety-day window in order for a state court sentence to run consecutively to a federal sentence imposed upon a probationer during the term of the probationer's state court-imposed probation. Consistent with our earlier precedent, we hold that in these types of cases, the revocation must be completed within the ninety-day window for the imposition of consecutive sentencing.

II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY.

In August 2004, a Kentucky trial court sentenced Raycine Love to six and one-half years' imprisonment for drug-related offenses and probated that sentence for five years. While on probation, Love committed a federal felony offense; and, in August 2006, the federal court sentenced Love to thirty months' imprisonment. While Love was serving that sentence in federal custody in October 2006, Kentucky officials lodged a detainer against Love with the federal correctional officials based upon Love's state probation violation. But Love's probation was not actually revoked by the state trial court until June 2008. Over Love's objection, the state trial court revoked Love's probation and ordered his Kentucky sentence to be served consecutively to his federal sentence. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed the revocation order, holding that Love's probation was not timely revoked under KRS 533.040(3). The Court of Appeals reasoned that Love's sentence on revocation had to be served concurrently with his federal sentence.

We granted discretionary review in order to examine whether the mere initiation of revocation proceedings during the statutorily mandated ninety-day window is sufficient for imposition of consecutive sentencing—as the trial court ruled—or whether the Kentucky revocation proceedings must be fully completed within the statutory ninety-day window for consecutive sentencing to be permissible—as the Court of Appeals held. We hold that the plain language of KRS 533.040(3) requires revocation proceedings to be completed within the ninety-day time limit—not merely initiated—before a revoked Kentucky sentence may be ordered to be served consecutively with a federal sentence. Since the Court of Appeals came to a similar conclusion, we affirm.

III. ANALYSIS.

As an initial matter, we note that the facts and procedural history of this case are each largely uncontested. Our task, therefore, is properly to interpret the relevant statutes. Because statutory interpretation is a question of law, our review is de novo; and the conclusions reached by the lower courts are entitled to no deference.¹ And we must also interpret statutes in accordance with their plain meanings,² generally construing non-technical words according to their common meanings.³

The plain language of KRS 533.040(3) does not support the Commonwealth's contention that merely initiating revocation proceedings is a sufficient basis for consecutive sentencing under these facts. As pertinent to this case, that statutory subsection provides that Love's Kentucky probation would run concurrently with his federal sentence unless his Kentucky probation was timely revoked. So the only way Love's Kentucky sentence could be ordered to run consecutively to his federal sentence would be if the Kentucky sentence was timely revoked, i.e., within ninety days after the Department of Corrections learned of the grounds for revocation.

It is beyond dispute that the mere lodging of the detainer with the federal authorities was insufficient to revoke Love's probation.⁴ To be precise, the lodging of the detainer was the first step in the revocation process.⁵ The Commonwealth errs when it contends that its mere lodging of a detainer satisfied the statutory requirement in KRS 533.040(3) that the “revocation shall take place ... within ninety days after the grounds for revocation [came] to the attention of the Department of Corrections....” For the Commonwealth's position to be correct, we would have to graft language onto the statute so that it would provide that “ initiation of the revocation proceedings shall take place ... within ninety days....” And we may not add language to a statute.⁶ So the plain language of KRS 533.040(3) compels a conclusion that in these types of cases, the revocation process must be completed within the ninety-day window for consecutive sentencing to be authorized.

In short, because the revocation did not take place within ninety days after the Department of Corrections received notice of the grounds for revocation of Love's Kentucky sentence, the trial court lacked the authority to order Love's Kentucky sentence on revocation to run consecutively to his federal sentence.

Our conclusion in this case simply reaffirms our decision in Gavel v. Commonwealth,⁷ a case directly on point. In Gavel, the state court probated a defendant's sentence; and a federal court later convicted the defendant of a federal offense, at which point the state court revoked the defendant's probation and ordered the state sentence to be served consecutively to the federal sentence, believing that consecutive sentencing was mandated by KRS 533.060(2).⁸ KRS 533.060(2) provided that when a defendant “has been convicted of a felony and is committed to a correctional facility ... and ... has been released by the court on probation, ... and is convicted ... [of] a felony committed while on ... probation, ... the period of confinement for that felony shall not run concurrently with any other sentence.” ⁹

We held that KRS 533.060 was inapplicable because “[t]he conviction [that felony] referred to in that section is the subsequent one, not the first.... In the present case, ‘that’ felony would be the federal conviction, which the state court has no control over.” ¹⁰ In other words, KRS 533.060 does not apply when a Kentucky defendant's probation is revoked because of a later federal offense because a Kentucky court cannot require a federal court to run a later federal sentence consecutively to an existing Kentucky sentence. Instead, in those situations, like the case at hand, the applicable statute is KRS 533.040(3), which specifically applies to federal offenses to which a Kentucky probationer becomes subject during the probationary period. ¹¹

Although our opinion in Gavel is terse, it does establish two points relevant to the present case. First, we made clear in Gavel that KRS 533.060(2)'s consecutive sentencing provision for offenses committed while on probation is inapplicable when a person on state probation incurs a federal sentence during the state probationary period. The Court of Appeals dissent in this case and the Commonwealth take issue with Gavel's holding. The Commonwealth contends that Gavel, although “technically correct [,]” nevertheless, “undermines the intention of the legislature in enacting KRS 533.060....” But the Commonwealth's argument that Gavel thwarts the General Assembly's intent to deal harshly with those whose probation is revoked is undermined by the fact that the General Assembly has not seen fit to make substantive changes to either KRS 533.040(3) or to KRS 533.060 since we rendered Gavel So we presume that the General Assembly agrees with our decision in Gavel.¹² Likewise, we remain convinced that Gavel is a correct construction of the relevant law for cases like the one at hand.

Second, we established in Gavel that KRS 533.040(3)'s provision whereby a state court can order a sentence to be served consecutively to a federal sentence upon revocation of state court probation only applies if “the order of probation revoked was within 90 days after the grounds for revocation came to the attention of the Bureau of Corrections....” ¹³ As stated previously, this holding comports with the plain language of KRS 533.040(3), which requires the revocation process to be completed within the aforementioned ninety-day window.

Because the order revoking Love's probation in the case at hand was not issued within ninety days after the Department of Corrections learned of the possible grounds for revocation of Love's probation, the trial court was without statutory authority to order Love's Kentucky sentence to be served consecutively to his federal sentence.¹⁴

We are not holding that the revocation in these types of cases must occur within the ninety-day window or be forever barred. A probated sentence may be revoked “at any time prior to the expiration or termination of the period of probation.” ¹⁵ Instead, the only question properly before us is whether an otherwise properly revoked sentence may be ordered to be served consecutively to a federal sentence if the revocation occurs more than ninety-days after the cause for revocation comes to the attention of the relevant officials for the Commonwealth. The ninety-day clock in KRS 533.040(3) for application of consecutive sentencing in these Kentucky state/federal offense cases begins to run...