State v. Barnes

• Decision Date: 02 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 52, 2014,52, 2014
• Citation: 116 A.3d 883
• Parties: State of Delaware, Plaintiff–Below, Appellee/Cross–Appellant, v. Jeffrey W. Barnes, Defendant–Below, Appellant/Cross–Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

116 A.3d 883

State of Delaware, Plaintiff–Below, Appellee/Cross–Appellant

v.Jeffrey W. Barnes, Defendant–Below, Appellant/Cross–Appellee.

No. 52, 2014

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: May 20, 2015

Decided: June 2, 2015

Elizabeth R. McFarlan, Esquire, Sean P. Lugg, Esquire (argued ), Karen V. Sullivan, Esquire, Kathryn J. Garrison, Esquire, State of Delaware Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware, for the State of Delaware.

Robert H. Robinson, Jr., Esquire, Bernard J. O'Donnell, Esquire (argued ), Office of Public Defender, Wilmington, Delaware, for Jeffrey W. Barnes.

Before STRINE, Chief Justice; HOLLAND,VALIHURA, VAUGHN, and SEITZ, Justices, constituting the Court en banc.

STRINE, Chief Justice:

I. INTRODUCTION

This appeal involves a single question: whether the provisions of the Truth In Sentencing Act of 1989 (the “TIS Act”) that indisputably abolished parole as to Title 11 and Title 16 of the Delaware Code also apply to felony DUI offenses imposed under § 4177 of Title 21. If the answer to that question is yes, as the State now argues, felony DUI offenders are ineligible for parole. But for nearly a generation, the judicial and administrative answer to the question has consistently been no. That is, the Superior Court and the Board of Parole have operated with the understanding that the provisions of the TIS Act that eliminated parole do not apply to felony DUI offenses. In addition, the Delaware Sentencing Accountability Commission (“SENTAC”), which is statutorily charged with providing guidelines to courts and attorneys about sentencing practices in criminal cases, adhered to this position in its 2014 Benchbook. Because the Code can reasonably be interpreted to continue parole eligibility for DUI offenses, that longstanding judicial and administrative interpretation must be given great weight.¹ We thus adhere to principles of stare decisis and judicial restraint, and give the Code the reading most consistent with the settled expectations of the public.²

II. THE TRUTH IN SENTENCING ACT

The General Assembly passed the Truth In Sentencing Act on July 17, 1989, to provide more certainty about the length of sentences to be served by criminal defendants.³ The TIS Act expressly amended statutes contained in Titles 11 and 16 only, although many of the amended provisions, including those governing the accumulation of good time credits, had previously been applied to offenses contained in other titles by the interaction of the Code's provisions.⁴ Most relevant to this appeal, the TIS Act amended 11 Del. C. § 4205 to state, “[n]o sentence to Level V incarceration imposed pursuant to this Section is subject to parole.”⁵ Section 4205 is a backbone provision of Title 11 that sets forth certain minimum and maximum sentences for levels of felonies contained in the Code.⁶ The TIS Act also stated that it took effect with respect to “all crimes” committed after June 30, 1989.⁷

When the TIS Act was enacted, DUIs were unclassified misdemeanor offenses contained in § 4177 of Title 21.⁸ In 1995, the General Assembly amended § 4177 to create felony DUI offenses. The maximum penalties for felony offenses were increased in 2009, and the minimum penalties for felony DUI offenses were increased in 2012.⁹ Accordingly, persons imprisoned for DUI offenses today are serving longer sentences than those who were incarcerated when the TIS Act was enacted.

III. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND¹⁰

The procedural background of this case is complicated. On May 24, 2013, Jeffrey Barnes pled guilty to his fifth DUI offense. The Superior Court sentenced Barnes under 21 Del. C . 4177(d) to five years at Level V incarceration for his class E felony.¹¹ In accordance with what seems to have been standard practice in the Superior Court for DUI offenses, the sentence order designated the offense as “non-TIS.”¹²

In August 2013, Barnes filed an application to the Board of Parole for early release. The Board granted Barnes' application over the State's opposition and Barnes was released after serving only six months of his sentence. The State then filed an emergency motion to correct an illegal sentence in the Superior Court, arguing for the first time that Barnes' sentence was erroneously labeled as “non-TIS” because the TIS Act applied to felony DUI convictions, and thus Barnes was ineligible for parole. After the Superior Court refused to rule on the State's motion,¹³ the State filed two petitions for a writ of mandamus directing the Board of Parole to rescind its decision releasing Barnes.¹⁴

On January 24, 2014, the Superior Court issued an order addressing both of the State's petitions.¹⁵ In determining that Barnes was eligible for parole, the Superior Court relied on a previous decision of that court finding that DUI sentences are non-TIS offenses,¹⁶ but nonetheless concluded that Barnes should not have been released because he had not completed the portion of his sentence that was mandatory under 21 Del. C. § 4177.

Barnes then appealed and the State filed a cross-appeal of right under 10 Del. C . § 9902(e). Shortly thereafter, Barnes filed a notice of voluntary dismissal of his appeal because his term of incarceration would have ended by the time his appeal was decided, and thus, the issue of his incarceration had become moot. The State, however, wished to maintain its cross-appeal, and both parties filed briefs. After hearing oral argument, this Court decided to resolve the central question—whether a felony DUI is covered by the TIS Act—en banc, after briefing and oral argument, as a matter of public importance.¹⁷ Accordingly, the Court appointed the Public Defender, who represented Barnes, to support the position that felony DUIs are not covered by the TIS Act. Although Barnes did not wish to pursue his appeal given his release, for the sake of clarity, we refer to him as the proponent of the position that the TIS Act does not apply to felony DUI offenses. Barnes took that position in his briefing and in oral argument in front of this Court, before the Public Defender was appointed to submit additional briefing.¹⁸

IV. ANALYSIS

The parties dispute whether the TIS Act eliminated parole for all crimes contained in the Delaware Code, including felony DUI offenses contained in Title 21, or only crimes contained in Titles 11 and 16. The State argues that because the TIS Act states that it applies to “all crimes,” persons serving prison sentences for felony DUIs, which are crimes under the definition in Title 11,¹⁹ are ineligible for parole. By contrast, Barnes contends that the TIS Act provisions that eliminated parole only apply to crimes contained in Titles 11 and 16, because the TIS Act only amended and referred to statutes contained in those titles.²⁰ Barnes also points out that for nearly a generation, the Board of Parole and the Superior Court have operated under the understanding that felony DUI offenses are eligible for parole, and SENTAC adhered to that position in its 2014 Benchbook.

In addressing this matter, we hew to a narrow version of the dispute before us, which is whether defendants convicted of felony DUI offenses under 21 Del. C. § 4177 are eligible for parole. Because the debate about this specific question arises twenty years after the adoption of felony DUIs, it would be hazardous to make any broader pronouncement about the complicated interaction of the various Code titles than is necessary to resolve this appeal.

We review issues of statutory construction de novo .²¹ The starting point for the interpretation of a statute begins with the statute's language.²² When a statute is susceptible to two different interpretations, as it is here,²³ the court is required to interpret the statute based on “available, relevant information and evidence.”²⁴

We acknowledge that the State's argument is a strong one as an initial matter. If one were interpreting the Code in 1995, shortly after the adoption of felony DUIs, this Court might take the position that the better reading of the statute is the one that the State now advances.²⁵ But, the contrary interpretation advanced by Barnes is also a reasonable one. The most direct provision of the Code upon which the State relies in this appeal is 11 Del. C. § 4205, which states, “[n]o sentence to Level V incarceration imposed pursuant to this Section is subject to parole.”²⁶ Admittedly, § 4177 makes a fifth DUI offense a class E felony, and § 4205 specifies the backbone terms of incarceration for each class of felonies. But the Code also states that Title 11 will not govern the sentencing for crimes in other titles if the “context otherwise requires.”²⁷ Section 4177 of Title 21 is largely a self-contained statute, and includes detailed prescriptions for sentencing a DUI offender, including the maximum and minimum term of incarceration.²⁸ As such, a court need not look to § 4205 when sentencing a felony DUI offender, as the State conceded at oral argument. In fact, to do so would be hazardous, because § 4205 only fixes the maximum term of incarceration for a class E felony at five years. This would not give a judge enough information to sentence a class E felony DUI offender, such as Barnes, because § 4177 has detailed provisions governing the sentence range that must be followed in sentencing such an offender and the minimum amount of time that he must serve.²⁹

Reading the Code to continue parole eligibility for felony DUI offenders is not only plausible, it the interpretation that has been held by the Superior Court and the Board of Parole—both composed of sophisticated, repeat players in our criminal justice system, who grapple with the Code on a daily basis—for the entire period since DUIs were made felonies in 1995. The Superior Court has twice addressed the question raised in this appeal and each time concluded that Title 21 offenses are not subject to the TIS Act.³⁰ The Attorney General was a party to both of those cases, but did not challenge the Superior Court's finding in either, despite the reality...