Demby v. SECRETARY, DEPT. OF PUB. SAFETY & CORR. SERV.
Decision Date | 01 July 2005 |
Docket Number | No. 1741 September Term, No. 2003., No. 1408, No. 1230, No. 1490, No. 1491 |
Citation | 877 A.2d 187,163 Md. App. 47 |
Parties | Quinton DEMBY, Jesse Baltimore, Kenneth E. Woodall, Daniel Falcone, Earl F. Cox, Jr. v. SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES. |
Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Stephen Z. Meehan (Joseph B. Tetrault, Pauline K. White, Prisoner Rights Information System of Maryland, Inc., on the brief), Chestertown, for appellant.
Michael O. Doyle (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.
Panel: MURPHY, C.J., KENNEY, SHARER, JJ.
In this consolidated appeal from separate inmate grievance proceedings, appellants are inmates committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Correction ("the Commissioner"). Appellee is the Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services ("the Secretary").
Appellants allege that, because of amendments to a Division of Correction ("the DOC") regulation, they are unlawfully being denied diminution of confinement credits for double-celling. After pursuing administrative remedies pursuant to the inmate grievance procedure, each appellant petitioned for judicial review by the circuit court for the county in which he was incarcerated.1 Appellants Quintin Demby, Jesse Baltimore, and Earl F. Cox, Jr. each filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Somerset County. Appellants Kenneth E. Woodall and Daniel Falcone each filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Washington County. The trial courts entered judgment in favor of the Secretary in all five cases.
Appellants then separately filed applications for leave to appeal to this Court. We granted the applications and consolidated the appeals for briefing and argument.2 We now reverse the judgments of the Circuit Court for Somerset County as to appellants Demby and Cox, and the judgments of the Circuit Court for Washington County as to appellants Woodall and Falcone. We remand the cases to the respective courts with instructions to reverse the decisions of the Secretary and remand the cases for further proceedings.
We dismiss appellant Baltimore's appeal as moot. Prior to argument before this Court, Baltimore was released to mandatory supervision. As appellants acknowledge in their reply brief, if they prevail on appeal, "Baltimore [will] have no remedy in damages." To the extent that Baltimore's appeal may present an unresolved issue of important public concern, or may present an issue that is capable of repetition yet evading review in his particular case, we are confident that our determinations as to the remaining four appellants will resolve those issues.3
The General Assembly has provided that "an inmate committed to the custody of the Commissioner is entitled to a diminution of the inmate's term of confinement as provided under [Title 3, Subtitle 7 of the Correctional Services Article]." Md.Code, Corr. Serv's § 3-702 (1999). With respect to the type of diminution credit involved in this case, the legislature has further provided:
§ 3-707. Same — Special Projects.
"The Secretary and Commissioner have designated double celling as a special project by adopting regulations providing that a double celled inmate serving what we shall refer to as an `eligible sentence' is a special project." Smith v. State, 140 Md. App. 445, 453, 780 A.2d 1199 (2001). As originally adopted effective April 1, 1990, former Md. Regs.Code ("COMAR") tit. 12, § 02.06.05 provided in pertinent part:
17:8 Md. Reg. 972-74 (Apr. 20, 1990). The DOC interpreted the regulation to prohibit any award of double-celling credits to an inmate if any sentence in his or her term of confinement is ineligible, regardless of whether the inmate's term of confinement also included a non-concurrent eligible sentence.
140 Md.App. at 461, 780 A.2d 1199. As a result of Smith, the DOC was required to award retroactive double-celling credits to an unknown number of inmates. The appellants in this case were included in that broad sweep.
Effective January 1, 2002, at least in part in response to this Court's opinion in Smith, the Commissioner of Correction amended, by "emergency action," the regulations regarding diminution of confinement credits for double-celling. See 29:4 Md. Reg. 413-14 (Feb. 22, 2002).7 Current COMAR § 12.02.06.04F now provides:
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