Lockhart-Beilke v. Peterson

• Decision Date: 29 September 2015
• Docket Number: Civil No. 13-1208 (JRT/BRT)
• Parties: BERNARD LOCKHART-BEILKE, Plaintiff, v. JEFFREY PETERSON, RICK PUNG, ZACH GAHM, ROGER BABURAM, and ALL HEARINGS AND RELEASE OFFICERS FOR THE HEARING AND RELEASE UNIT, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

BERNARD LOCKHART-BEILKE, Plaintiff, v. JEFFREY PETERSON, RICK PUNG, ZACH GAHM,ROGER BABURAM, and ALL HEARINGS AND RELEASE

OFFICERS FOR THE HEARING AND RELEASE UNIT, Defendants.

Civil No. 13-1208 (JRT/BRT)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA

September 29, 2015

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

A.L. Brown, CAPITOL CITY LAW GROUP, LLC, 413 Wacouta Street, Suite 140, Saint Paul, MN 55101, for plaintiff.

Scott A. Grosskreutz, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL, 445 Minnesota Street, Suite 900, Saint Paul, MN 55101, for defendants.

Plaintiff Bernard Lockhart-Beilke ("Lockhart-Beilke") was sentenced for criminal sexual conduct and received an executed sentence of thirty-eight months, to be served partially in prison and partially on supervised release. He was also given a mandatory ten-year conditional release term. The executed sentence was scheduled to end in September 2010. In October 2010, after his executed sentence had ended, Lockhart-Beilke's release was revoked for misconduct he likely committed mostly or entirely during his supervised release term. Nevertheless, he was given years of additional prison time during what was his conditional release term.

Although Minnesota case law formerly allowed this sort of practice, two recent Minnesota Court of Appeals decisions have stated that an offender cannot be forced to serve time during his conditional release term for misconduct committed during a supervised release term. Lockhart-Beilke was held in prison for almost three years after his release was revoked and now brings this action against the Minnesota Department of Corrections' ("DOC") Hearings and Release Unit ("HRU") officers ("defendants"), alleging that he was unlawfully incarcerated in violation of his constitutional rights, and that he was falsely imprisoned in violation of state law. The defendants now move for summary judgment. Because qualified immunity protects the defendants from suit, the Court will grant the defendants' motion as to the federal law claims. In the absence of any remaining federal law claims, the Court will decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims.

BACKGROUND

On August 5, 2008, Lockhart-Beilke was adjudicated guilty of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony, in Dakota County, Minnesota. (Aff. of Patrick Courtney ("Courtney Aff.") ¶ 30, Oct. 1, 2014, Docket No. 30; id., Ex. 6 at Peterson 0719)¹; see also Minn. Stat. § 609.345. The court imposed an executed sentence of thirty-eight months, along with a ten-year period of conditional release. (Courtney Aff. ¶ 30.) Lockhart-Beilke received a credit of 396 days, however, for time already served.(Id.) Before delving into Lockhart-Beilke's allegations, it is necessary to discuss how the DOC administers sentences and to summarize recent relevant state case law.²

I. EXECUTED SENTENCES IN MINNESOTA AND SUPERVISED RELEASE

An executed sentence in Minnesota consists of two parts: "(1) a specified minimum term of imprisonment that is equal to two-thirds of the executed sentence; and (2) a specified maximum supervised release term that is equal to one-third of the executed sentence." Minn. Stat. § 244.101, subd. 1. "[T]he amount of time the defendant actually serves in prison may be extended by the commissioner if the defendant commits any disciplinary offenses in prison." Id. at subd. 2. Indeed, a defendant could serve his entire executed sentence term in prison. Id.

The DOC labels "the date of an offender's initial release from prison" a supervised release date ("SRD"). (Courtney Aff. ¶ 4.) Following his SRD, as noted above, a defendant serves the remainder of his executed sentence on supervised release, also known as parole. (Decl. of Jeffrey Peterson ("Peterson Decl.") ¶¶ 8-9, Oct. 1, 2014, Docket No. 27.) If an offender violates the terms of his release, the relevant corrections agent contacts the HRU and generally recommends either (1) a restructured release,whereby the offender remains in the community under revised conditions; or (2) a revocation of release and return to prison. (Id. ¶ 9.) The offender is arrested and an HRU hearing officer conducts a revocation hearing at the jail. (Id.; see also id., Ex. 1 (Evidentiary Hearings Policy).) Hearing officers make factual findings at the hearing and, at the disposition phase of the hearing, decide whether the release should be revoked and whether the offender should return to prison. (Id. ¶¶ 9-11.) If an offender disagrees with the hearing officer's decision, he may appeal to the head of the HRU. (Id. ¶ 11.) Hearing officers make complex decisions throughout the parole revocation process but, according to Peterson, they rely on attorneys in the DOC's Policy and Legal Services division for information regarding new laws or judicial decisions. (Id. ¶ 12.)

If an offender is sent back to prison (called "accountability time"), he does not receive a new SRD. (Id. ¶ 13.) Instead, the offender receives a projected release date ("PRD"). (Id.) Unlike the SRD, which is a guaranteed date of release, the "PRD is subject to change based on the offender's behavior . . . and his compliance with any directives imposed by the hearing officer." (Id.) The offender has regular meetings, called review hearings, at which a hearing officer considers whether his PRD should be extended further. (Id. ¶ 14.)

Throughout this process, hearing officers do not carry an offender-specific caseload and instead hear cases as they arise. (Id. ¶ 3.) Moreover, the hearings officers do not actually calculate the offenders' sentences, or their exact SRDs or PRDs. (Id. ¶¶ 6, 13.) Instead, staff at the DOC's Records and Sentence Administration unit ("records unit") completes those calculations. (Id. ¶ 13; Courtney Aff. ¶ 3.)

II. CONDITIONAL RELEASE

At the time Lockhart-Beilke committed his crime and was sentenced, Minnesota law required the DOC to place an offender, who was guilty of criminal sexual conduct, "on conditional release for ten years, minus the time the offender served on supervised release." Minn. Stat. § 609.3455, subd. 6 (2005).³ Conditional release and supervised release are functionally the same: "an offender resides in the community, subject to compliance with a list of release conditions and to reincarceration for violating release conditions." (Peterson Decl. ¶ 15.)

Based on the prior version of the relevant statute and past caselaw, the DOC's long-time understanding was that "supervised release terms and conditional-release terms ran concurrently." (Id.; see also Courtney Aff. ¶ 11); see also State v. Koperski, 611 N.W.2d 569, 572 (Minn. Ct. App. 2000) (interpreting a similar, earlier version of Section 609.3455 (then labeled Minn. Stat. § 609.109, subd. 7), which contained similar language subtracting from the conditional release term any time spent on supervised release, and stating that "[t]here is no doubt that the intent of the legislature was for conditional release and supervised release to run concurrently once the defendant is released from prison"); State v. Enger, 539 N.W.2d 259, 263-64 & n.1 (Minn. Ct. App. 1995). The effect of this understanding, in Peterson's words, was that "when a hearing officer revoked an offender's release, the revocation could extend through expiration of the offender's conditional-release term." (Peterson Decl. ¶ 15.) In other words, if anoffender's release was revoked during his period of supervised release, prior to his SRD, his accountability time in prison could run beyond his SRD (and the corresponding end to his executed sentence) and instead run through the end of his concurrently running conditional release term. (Id.) Once an offender, serving accountability time, went beyond his SRD, the SRD date disappeared from his file in the Correctional Operational Management System ("COMS") and the end of his sentence was the same as the end of his conditional release term. (Courtney Aff. ¶ 12.)

A. Peterson v. Fabian

In a 2010 decision, the Minnesota Court of Appeals appeared to reverse course, at least in certain statutory contexts. Peterson v. Fabian, 784 N.W.2d 843 (Minn. Ct. App. 2010). In that case, an offender was sentenced to one year and one day for failing to register as a predatory offender, along with a ten-year conditional release term under Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5a. Id. at 844-45. The statute directs the DOC to place a person who fails to register "on conditional release for ten years." Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5a. The statute does not contain a provision that subtracts from the conditional release term any time spent on supervised release. Id. While on supervised release, the defendant in Peterson violated the terms of his release and was sentenced to 250 days of incarceration, which went beyond the end of his executed sentence term and into the ten-year conditional release term. Peterson, 784 N.W.2d at 844. The defendant's release date was extended even further, by another 180 days. Id. at 845. The defendant challenged his incarceration via a habeas petition and the Minnesota Court of Appealsheld in his favor. Id. at 845-48. The court concluded that a conditional release term under Section 243.166 for failure to register "is consecutive to a supervised-release term." Id. at 846. Consequently, when the defendant was reincarcerated following the revocation of his supervised release, that reincarceration could only last as long as his executed sentence (i.e., to the end of his supervised release term), not through the end of his conditional release term. Id. at 845 ("[The defendant] argues that conditional release is consecutive to supervised release and that the extension of his incarceration beyond the completion of his sentence, based on a supervised-release violation, is unlawful.").

The court derived this ruling from the plain language of Section 243.166, subd. 5a, which states "that 'the court shall provide that after...