Evans v. Beard
| Decision Date | 28 May 2009 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 05-6826. |
| Citation | 639 F.Supp.2d 497 |
| Parties | William EVANS v. Jeffrey A. BEARD in his official capacity as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Superintendent of the SCI at Waymart, and District Attorney of the County of Lehigh. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Michael Kelly, Philadelphia, PA, for Petitioner.
Patricia F. Mulqueen, Joan L. Reinsmith, Jeffrey S. Dimmig, Joan L. Reinsmith, Patricia F. Mulqueen, Lehigh County District Attorney's Office, Allentown, PA, for Respondents.
William Evans, an inmate at the State Correctional Institute at Waymart, Pennsylvania, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The Honorable Charles B. Smith, former United States Chief Magistrate Judge for Eastern District of Pennsylvania, filed a Report and Recommendation ("R & R") recommending the petition be denied. The R & R will be adopted in part and the petition will be granted.
On October 29, 1986, Evans was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee on warrants issued in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania; he waived extradition. On November 6, 1986, Evans was transferred to Lehigh County Prison and charged with rape. On November 13, 1986, Evans was transferred to Northampton County, Pennsylvania and charged with separate counts of rape in that jurisdiction. Evans was convicted and sentenced in both counties, but in 1992, the Pennsylvania Superior Court vacated both convictions and ordered new trials.
On remand, Evans stipulated to non-trial dispositions in both cases. On January 14, 1994, Evans pleaded guilty in Northampton County and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years' imprisonment. On May 11, 1994, Evans entered a plea of nolo contendere in Lehigh County. On June 29, 1994, Judge Lawrence Brenner of the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas sentenced Evans to 10 to 20 years' imprisonment, to be served concurrently with the sentence imposed in Northampton County.1 On July 8, 1994, the Lehigh Court of Common Pleas issued a "Court Commitment Form DC-300B"2 (hereinafter, "Form DC-300B") recording the effective date of the Lehigh County sentence as November 6, 1986. (Paper No. 12, Ex. C.) Judge Brenner did not sign Form DC-300B.3
By designating the effective date of sentence as November 6, 1986 on Form DC-300B, the Clerk of Court granted Evans credit on the Lehigh County sentence for all time served in custody from that date forward. At some point after Form DC-300B was issued on July 8, 1994, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections determined that Evans was erroneously granted time credit because, under the Department's interpretation of state law, he was not entitled to credit on the Lehigh County sentence for time served on the Northampton County sentence from November 13, 1986 to March 21, 1991.
On December 28, 1994, Penny R. Grissinger, a records supervisor at the Department of Corrections wrote to Judge Brenner:
Your Honor:
Your assistance is required in resolving a question concerning the pre-commitment credit indicated on the sentence imposed on the above-named inmate.
Documents received by the Department of Corrections indicated that on June 29, 1994, under the seal of the court, a pre-commitment credit was ordered extending from November 6, 1986 to be applied to the following sentence: CP# 125, '87. However, other documents in our possession indicate that this inmate has been continuously serving a sentence previously imposed by Northampton County, CP# 1694, '86, and that all of the time served by this inmate since November 13, 1986, has been credited towards the satisfaction of that sentence.
The legal office of the Department of Corrections has advised me that under prevailing statutory and case law, it does not appear to be appropriate to give pre-commitment credit on a subsequent sentence for time that was served in satisfaction of a previously imposed sentence. Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 1406(c) provides that if the defendant is in prison under a sentence imposed for any other offense when a new sentence is imposed, the new sentence "shall be deemed to commence from the date of imposition," unless the sentence is expressly designated to be a consecutive sentence. The language appearing in Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 1406(c) is adopted verbatim from a now repealed Pennsylvania statute which had been codified at 19 P.S. 894.
The reinactment [sic] of exactly the same language in a rule of criminal procedure that was found in a prior statute indicates that it was intended that the rule of procedure should be interpreted in the same way as the prior statute had been interpreted by the courts. [Citation omitted.] The appropriate interpretation of the language in 19 P.S. 894 was discussed at length by the Pennsylvania Superior Court in the case of Commonwealth ex rel. Lerner v. Smith, 151 Pa.Super. 265, 30 A.2d 347 (1943). The relevant portion of that opinion reads as
[Quotation omitted.]
Eligibility for pre-commitment credit is controlled by statute. 42 Pa.C.S. 9760. That statute allows credit for all time spent in custody "as a result of the criminal charge for which a prison sentence is imposed" (emphasis added). However, a long line of Pennsylvania cases have consistently adhered to the principle that a sentenced prisoner who has already once received a credit for time served is not entitled to receive a double credit for this same time on a separate and distinct sentence. [Citations omitted.]
Therefore, the Department has, to date, not extended any duplicative portion of this credit to this inmate. If your honor agrees that the credit is not appropriate, then amended commitment papers from the Clerk of Court removing the reference to this credit would be sincerely appreciated. However, if Your Honor disagrees with the analysis of the law set forth in this letter and wishes the Department to apply the full amount of credit originally indicated for this sentence, the Department will apply that credit upon receiving your reply to this letter confirming your intention.
Very truly yours
Penny R. Grissinger
Corr. Records Supervisor
cc: District Attorney
Defense Attorney
Letter from Penny R. Grissinger to Honorable Lawrence J. Brenner (Paper No. 24, Ex. B) (emphasis in original). The letter indicates a carbon copy was sent to "Defense Attorney," but Evans disclaims receipt.4 (Paper No. 24.) Nothing in the record suggests Judge Brenner responded to Ms. Grissinger or the Department of Corrections. On February 9, 1995, Andrea Naugle, Lehigh County Clerk of Court, certified, signed and notarized Form DC-300B, which had been issued without certification on July 8, 1994.5 (Paper No. 12, Ex. C.)
For eleven years following the imposition of Evans' sentence in 1994, the Department of Corrections and the Board of Probation and Parole represented to Evans he would be released on November 13, 2006. As recently as October 13, 2004, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole notified Evans, "You will serve your unexpired maximum sentence, 11/13/2006." (Paper No. 12, Ex. E.) However, on April 13, 2005, without notice or a hearing, the Department of Corrections issued a Sentence Status Summary deducting credit from the Lehigh County sentence for time served on the Northampton County sentence from November 13, 1986 to March 20, 1991. The Sentence Status Summary explained that The Sentence Status Summary provided a revised "Controlling Maximum Date" of March 14, 2011. Id. Upon learning of his amended release date, Evans filed a pro se petition for time credit with the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas.
On May 18, 2005, the Clerk of Court wrote to Judge Brenner regarding Evans' petition for time credit:
Attached please find a copy of a calculation of credit time that I prepared indicating the appropriate dates of incarceration, sentence and credit time for the above-named defendant as presently given by the State Correctional System. Please note that I have added the time period 10/29/1986 to 11/06/1986 since I received information from the Lehigh County Detectives that the defendant was arrested in Memphis Tennessee on our warrant and extradited and returned to Lehigh County on November 6, 1986.
I spoke with a Supervisor at the Records Department at the State Correctional Institution at Waymart to find out what credit was applied to the defendant's cases. As you can see, credit was given to the defendant from the original arrest on 11/06/1986 to 11/12/1986. Northampton County arrested the defendant on 11/13/1986 and credit from 11/13/1986 to 12/06/1990 (date of Northampton County's original sentence date) was applied only to the Northampton County case. The Lehigh County case's original sentence date was 03/21/1991. After an appeal by the defendant, the Superior Court vacated the 03/21/1991 sentence and a new sentence was imposed on 06/29/1994. The State Correctional Institution gave credit to the defendant for the time of the vacated Lehigh County sentence until the new sentence (03/21/1991 to 06/29/1994). The time in question by the defendant is from 11/13/1986 to 12/06/1990. There are several case laws that indicate that "presentence custody in county after sentence in another county constituted time served under that other county's sentence, not additional presentence custody time credible [sic] to latter county's sentence". [Citations and quotations omitted.] The State Correctional Institution Records' Supervisor did indicate, however, that a letter was previously sent to your Honor about this matter. This letter indicated that the sentencing judge can...
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Evans v. *sec'y Pa. Dep't of Corr.
...the Lehigh Court “arbitrarily and capriciously” amended Evans's release date in violation of his due process rights. Evans v. Beard, 639 F.Supp.2d 497, 511 (E.D.Pa.2009). The Commonwealth's timely appeal of that decision is before us now.II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review The District ......
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Pryor v. Pa Dept. of Corr., 355 M.D. 2015
...procedural protections required by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution." (Petition ¶ 8 (citing Evans v. Beard, 639 F. Supp.2d 497 (E.D. Pa.2009), rev'd, 645 F.3d 650 (3d Cir. 2011)).) The Department could not delete the trial court's "proviso of specific time served c......