Price v. Mills, s. 85SA171
| Decision Date | 02 December 1986 |
| Docket Number | 85SA320,Nos. 85SA171,s. 85SA171 |
| Parties | Walter PRICE, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Richard G. MILLS, Superintendent of Skyline Correctional Facility, and Chase Riveland, Director of the Department of Corrections, Respondents-Appellants. John Powell JENKINS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Chase RIVELAND, Executive Director, Department of Corrections, Paula Watson, Time Computation Officer, Department of Corrections, Donna Lohmes, Time Computation Officer, Department of Corrections, Lena Dice, Time Computation Officer, Department of Corrections, Gene Tollis, Offender Records Operations, Department of Corrections, State of Colorado, Respondents-Appellees. John Powell JENKINS, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Chase RIVELAND, Executive Director, Department of Corrections, Time Computation Officers, Department of Corrections, State of Colorado, Respondents-Appellants. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
David F. Vela, State Public Defender and Kenneth M. Plotz, Deputy State Public Defender, Salida, for petitioner-appellee.
Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., John Daniel Dailey and Terrence A. Gillespie, Asst. Attys. Gen., Denver, for respondents-appellants.
These consolidated appeals raise questions concerning methods used by the Department of Corrections (the Department) to calculate certain credits established by the General Assembly to reduce the actual amount of time convicted felons remain incarcerated as the result of judicially imposed sentences. In 85SA171, a trial court judgment (85CV18) concluding that the Department erroneously calculated the good time credits applicable to appellee Walter Price's sentence is challenged. In 85SA320, two trial court judgments in two cases, 84CV87 and 84CV256, are involved. 1 In the former case, appellant John Powell Jenkins appeals the trial court's denial of his motion to show cause 2 challenging the Department's calculation of presentence confinement credits for establishing his parole eligibility date in connection with a sentence imposed upon him on July 11, 1983, for a burglary committed after July 1, 1979. In 84CV256, a judgment granting Jenkins' petition for mandamus and requiring the Department to recalculate the good time and earned time credits applicable to Jenkins' parole eligibility date in connection with the same sentence is attacked. We conclude that the Department's method of calculating good time credits for presentence confinement is proper and, therefore, affirm the trial court's judgment in 84CV87. We also find the Department's method of calculating good time credits for Jenkins and Price to be appropriate and, therefore, reverse the trial court judgments in 84CV256 and 85CV18.
A brief review of certain legislative decisions requiring reduction in time actually served by inmates under sentences imposed by trial courts is necessary to appreciate the issues raised by these appeals.
Two statutory schemes establish the framework within which the Department must compute good time and earned time credits to sentences of inmates in the custody of the Department. Section 17-22.5-201, 8A C.R.S. (1986), hereafter termed "Section 201," governs the award of good time credit to reduce time served by inmates sentenced for crimes committed before July 1, 1979. Sections 17-22.5-301 and -302, 8A C.R.S. (1986), hereafter termed "Section 301," govern calculation of credit for good time and earned time for inmates sentenced for crimes committed on or after July 1, 1979.
The credits established by the General Assembly in Section 201 consist of three components. As administratively denominated by the Department, they are: (1) "statutory good time" under section 17-22.5-201(1); (2) "trusty time" under section 17-22.5-201(2); and (3) "meritorious time" under section 17-22.5-201(3). Statutory good time is legislatively defined as follows:
Unless otherwise provided by law, every inmate confined in a correctional facility of the department who has committed no infraction of the rules or regulations of the department or the laws of the state and who performs in a faithful, diligent, industrious, orderly, and peaceable manner the work, duties, and tasks assigned to him to the satisfaction of the executive director or any of his designees may be allowed time credit reductions as follows: A deduction of two months in each of the first two years, four months in each of the next two years, and five months in each of the remaining years of his term of confinement, and correspondingly for any part of the year if such term of confinement is for less than a year.
§ 17-22.5-201(1). Trusty time is defined as follows:
To those inmates whom the executive director or any of his designees may designate as trusties and who conduct themselves in accordance with departmental rules and perform their work in a creditable manner, upon approval of the executive director or any of his designees, additional good time to that allowed ... in subsection (1) of this section, not to exceed ten days in any one calendar month, shall be credited upon the time remaining to be served, such credit to be allowed only upon the actual number of months served in each year in a correctional facility of the department.
§ 17-22.5-201(2). Meritorious time is defined in the following terms:
The executive director or any of his designees may grant to any inmate confined in a correctional facility additional good time credit to that allowed under subsections (1) and (2) of this section, not to exceed five days per month for each calendar year remaining to be served, for the following reasons:
(a) Meritorious service by an inmate; or
(b) Outstanding performance of assigned tasks in correctional industries.
Each inmate is presumed by the Department to have accrued the maximum allowable statutory good time and trusty time credits. Statutory good time and trusty time are disallowed by the Department only after a hearing where the existence of misconduct warranting the disallowance is established. Meritorious time is awarded on a discretionary basis after a period of positive behavior is exhibited by the inmate.
The credits allocable under Section 301 are divided into two components: "good time" under section 17-22.5-301 and "earned time" under section 17-22.5-302. Good time is described as follows:
Each person sentenced for a crime committed on or after July 1, 1979 ... whose conduct indicates that he has substantially observed all of the rules and regulations of the institution or facility in which he has been confined and has faithfully performed the duties assigned to him shall be entitled to a good time deduction of fifteen days a month from his sentence.
§ 17-22.5-301(1). Under this provision, an inmate is entitled to one day of credit against a sentence for each day served.
Earned time is defined as follows:
In addition to the good time authorized in section 17-22.5-301, earned time, not to exceed thirty days for every six months of incarceration, may be deducted from the inmate's sentence upon a demonstration to the department by the inmate that he has made substantial and consistent progress in each of the following categories:
(a) Work and training, including attendance, promptness, performance, cooperation, care of materials, and safety;
(b) Group living, including housekeeping, personal hygiene, cooperation, social adjustment, and double bunking;
(c) Participation in counseling sessions and involvement in self-help groups;
(d) Progress toward the goals and programs established by the Colorado diagnostic program.
§ 17-22.5-302. In essence, good time under section 17-22.5-301 is analogous to statutory good time and trusty time under sections 17-22.5-201(1) and (2).
In administering Section 301, the Department assumes that inmates are entitled to receive the good time credits; these credits are disallowed only after misconduct has been established. The earned time credits established by section 17-22.5-302, which are analogous to the meritorious time credits established by section 17-22.5-201(3), are awarded discretionarily by the Department.
At the time he began serving the eight-year sentence for the burglary he committed in 1982, Jenkins was on parole from three concurrent sentences of indeterminate to twenty years, each imposed in 1977. His parole status was revoked in October of 1983. In October of 1981, Price received a sentence of eight years for an offense committed after July 1, 1979, to be served concurrently with the following two prior consecutive sentences: indeterminate to fifteen years, imposed in 1974, and indeterminate to five years, imposed in 1976. Thus, at the time these cases were filed, both Jenkins and Price were simultaneously serving sentences for offenses committed before and on or after July 1, 1979. 3
When calculating and applying credits to sentences of inmates in these circumstances, the Department has not adopted separate administrative systems applicable to sentences imposed for offenses committed before and on or after July 1, 1979. Instead, the Department applies a single system of credits to a composite "governing sentence" created for each such inmate by considering all of the inmate's sentences together to arrive at a minimum governing sentence and a maximum governing sentence. The Department applies the credits established by Section 201 to this composite sentence if a sentence for any pre-July 1, 1979, offense produces the longest incarceration effect...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People v. Black
...to a "hybrid" sentence of ten years with discretionary parole. Id. at 808. Instead, we found the governing sentence rule of Price v. Mills, 728 P.2d 715 (Colo.1986), to be dispositive. Id. Under the governing sentence rule, the longest of an inmate's concurrent sentences and its parole prov......
-
Cunningham v. Diesslin, 95-1166
...July 1, 1985, could earn a good time deduction equal to one day of credit against a sentence for each day served. Price v. Mills, 728 P.2d 715, 718 (Colo.1986) (en banc). The same inmate could receive additional earned time deductions under § 17-22.5-302(1). The Colorado Supreme Court has c......
-
Grenemyer v. Gunter
...for Petitioner's interpretation of Colorado law. 5 Three cases cited by Petitioner actually contradict his argument. In Price v. Mills, 728 P.2d 715 (Colo.1986), the Colorado Supreme Court, in addressing the method of calculating good-time credits, expressly recognized that good-time credit......
-
People v. Broga, s. 86SA84
...holding that the department was calculating incorrectly the defendant's good time credits. We decided a similar issue in Price v. Mills, 728 P.2d 715 (Colo.1986), and we find the reasoning of that case persuasive in the controversy now before us. Price involved a challenge to the department......