Luck v. District of Columbia, 92-SP-665.

• Decision Date: 24 November 1992
• Docket Number: No. 92-SP-665.,92-SP-665.
• Citation: 617 A.2d 509
• Parties: Charles LUCK, Appellant, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Appellees.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

617 A.2d 509

Charles LUCK, Appellant, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Appellees.

No. 92-SP-665.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued October 13, 1992.

Decided November 24, 1992.

Katherine J. Henry, Washington, DC, for appellant.

Mary L. Wilson, Asst. Corp. Counsel, with whom John Payton, Corp. Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corp. Counsel, Washington, DC, were on the brief, for appellees.

Before FERREN, SCHWELB and WAGNER, Associate Judges.

SCHWELB, Associate Judge:

On March 23, 1990, Charles Luck, a prisoner at Lorton Reformatory, filed this action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He named as defendants the Chairman of the District's Parole Board and the Director of the District's Department of Corrections (DOC). Luck alleged that, in calculating the amount of time which he must serve on his sentence, the defendants had wrongfully denied him "good time" credit for "street" time which he had served on parole, in violation of the Good Time Credits Act of 1986 (GTCA), D.C.Code § 24-431(a) (1989). He prayed that the court award him declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

While Luck's suit was pending, the DOC recalculated his sentence. The agency awarded Luck credit for a parole term which began after April 11, 1987, the effective date of the GTCA. The DOC declined, however, to credit Luck for an earlier term which began prior to April 11, 1987. As a result of the recomputation, the sole remaining issue was whether Luck was entitled to credit for pre-Act street time.

Each party filed a motion for summary judgment. On October 30, 1990, in an unpublished order (Luck I), 1990 WL 179928, United States District Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted the defendants' motion, holding inter alia that the GTCA was prospective only and did not apply to the parole term which predated the Act.

Luck appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On June 1, 1992, in an unpublished Memorandum Order (Luck II), the federal appellate court certified to this court, pursuant to D.C.Code § 11-723 (1989), the following question:

Did the District of Columbia Parole Board and the District of Columbia Department of Corrections properly interpret section 24-431(a) of the Code of the District of Columbia in deciding that time spent on parole prior to April 11, 1987, cannot be credited against a person's sentence when that person's sentence is recomputed after April 11, 1987?

We answer the certified question in the affirmative.

I THE FACTS¹

On April 7, 1970, Luck was sentenced in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to a combined term of eight to twenty-four years for the crimes of robbery, second degree burglary and grand larceny. On May 9, 1973 plaintiff escaped from custody. He was later apprehended in Maryland, and was subsequently prosecuted and convicted of an offense committed in that State. He remained incarcerated in Maryland until May 15, 1978. Upon the completion of his Maryland term, Luck was returned to the DOC to resume service of his original sentence.

On November 5, 1982, Luck was released on parole. On March 30, 1987, the Parole Board issued a warrant for his arrest for violations of the conditions of his release. On April 13, 1987, he was arrested on the Board's warrant. On May 22, 1987, the Board revoked plaintiff's parole, but immediately reparoled him, subject to his compliance with special conditions of narcotic surveillance and outpatient drug counseling. Luck was released to the community on July 1, 1987.

On August 21, 1989, the Board issued a second parole warrant for Luck's arrest, charging that he had failed to comply with the conditions of his release. Luck was apprehended and, following a new revocation hearing, the Board again revoked Luck's parole and remanded him to the custody of DOC to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Following the revocation of Luck's parole, the DOC recomputed the amount of time that Luck would be required to serve. Luck did not receive street time credit for the period which he had served on parole from November 1982 through April 1987. After initially also denying him credit for the second parole period, which began in July 1987 and ended in August 1989, the DOC ultimately credited Luck with the post-Act street time.

II THE RELEVANT STATUTES

Prior to the enactment of the GTCA, a prisoner was not entitled to good time credit for street time. The applicable statute then in force provided, in pertinent part, that if a grant of parole is revoked,

the prisoner, unless subsequently reparoled, shall serve the remainder of the sentence originally imposed less any computation for good conduct which may be earned by him after his return to custody.... The time a prisoner was on parole shall not be taken into account to diminish the time for which he was sentenced.

D.C.Code § 24-206(a) (1989).

In 1986, the Council of the District of Columbia enacted the GTCA, which became effective on April 11, 1987. The Act was intended "to relieve prison overcrowding, to encourage prisoners to rehabilitate themselves, and, implicitly, to temper justice with mercy in those cases in which such tempering is appropriate." Winters v. Ridley, 596 A.2d 569, 569 (D.C. 1991) (per curiam) (Schwelb, J., concurring). To promote these purposes, the GTCA allowed "good time" to be credited against the prisoner's minimum sentence. D.C.Code § 24-431(a) (1989). Under prior law, good time was credited only against the maximum. D.C.Code § 24-206(a) (1989); Winters, supra, 596 A.2d at 570 (Schwelb, J., concurring). In addition, the Act provided for the first time that prisoners would receive credit for time which they successfully spent on parole. Specifically, § 24-431(a) provides in pertinent part that

every person shall be given credit on the maximum and the minimum term of imprisonment for time spent in custody or on parole as a result of the offense for which the sentence was imposed.

(Emphasis added.)

While the GTCA was under consideration by the Council, one of its principal sponsors informed her colleagues that the legislation was not intended to be retroactive. Councilmember Wilhelmina Rolark, who chaired the Council's Committee on the Judiciary, stated that "the bill would be prospective only and in no way retroactively applied." Her remarks were included in the Judiciary Committee's report, which was issued on November 13, 1986. There was no suggestion by anyone that retroactive application was contemplated.²

On May 22, 1987, a few weeks after the GTCA became effective, the Director of the DOC issued Department Order No. 4340.2, which provides in pertinent part that

every resident returned to custody as a parole violator shall be given credit for time spent on parole after 11 April 1987 until the time that the parole violation warrant is executed.

(Emphasis added).

III LEGAL DISCUSSION

A. The Contentions of the Parties.

According to Luck, the "plain language" of the GTCA means that whenever a prisoner's parole term is recomputed after the effective date of the Act, that prisoner is entitled to credit for time served on parole both before and after April 11, 1987. Luck expressly disclaims any contention that every prisoner became entitled to such a recomputation upon the enactment of the GTCA. He contends that the construction of the Act which he proposes would relieve prison overcrowding, a goal which he views as the dominant purpose of the GTCA. He also asks us to apply the rule of lenity, as well as the canon that statutes should be construed, if reasonably possible, to avoid substantial constitutional questions.

The District,³ on the other hand, insists that § 24-431(a) must be read in conjunction with § 24-206(a), which was the sole legislative pronouncement on the issue, prior to the enactment of the GTCA, and which provided that a prisoner was entitled to no credit for time spent on parole. According to the District, a consideration of the two statutes together reflects a legislative design to grant credit for street time served after (but not for street time served before) the effective date of the Act. This result, says the District, is bolstered both by the legislative history of the GTCA and by its contemporaneous administrative construction. The District also argues that if the GTCA were construed as Luck suggests, then a prisoner's entitlement to credit for street time would be contingent upon a fortuitous event, namely, whether the sentence was recomputed before or after the effective date of the Act.

B. The "Plain Language" Conundrum.

Citing, inter alia, Riggs National Bank v. District of Columbia, 581 A.2d 1229, 1235 (D.C.1990), Luck asks us to construe the "plain language" of the GTCA as supporting his construction of it. The proposition that plain statutory language generally trumps other considerations is hardly subject to challenge. As the Supreme Court recently reminded us,

courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there.... When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then this first canon is also the last; judicial inquiry is complete.

Connecticut Nat'l Bank v. Germain, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 112 S.Ct. 1146, 1149, 117

L.Ed.2d 391 (1992) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).⁴

Although the District appears to concede that Luck's "plain language" contention has at least superficial merit,⁵ we find this concession to be an improvident one. The first sentence of § 24-431(a) states that "every person shall be given credit ... for time spent ... on parole as a result of the offense for which the sentence was imposed." Read literally and in isolation, this language ostensibly entitles every sentenced prisoner who is incarcerated on or after the effective date of the Act to credit for time served on parole. On its face, the statute does not...