State v. Somerlot

• Decision Date: 12 December 2000
• Docket Number: No. 27907.,27907.
• Citation: 209 W.Va. 125,544 S.E.2d 52
• Parties: STATE of West Virginia, Plaintiff Below, Appellee, v. Keith SOMERLOT, Defendant Below, Appellant.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

544 S.E.2d 52

209 W.Va. 125

STATE of West Virginia, Plaintiff Below, Appellee, v. Keith SOMERLOT, Defendant Below, Appellant.

No. 27907.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted November 28, 2000.

Decided December 12, 2000.

Concurring Opinion of Justice Starcher January 5, 2001.

Stephen S. Fitz, Fairmont, West Virginia, Attorney for Appellant.

Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., Attorney General, Barbara H. Allen, Managing Deputy Attorney General, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorneys for Appellee.

SCOTT, Justice:

This case is before the Court upon the appeal of Keith A. Somerlot from the December 30, 1999, sentencing order of the Circuit Court of Preston County, West Virginia, wherein the Appellant was sentenced to an indeterminate term of one to five years. The lower court then suspended the sentence and placed the Appellant on probation for three years. The sentence was entered subsequent to the Appellant's conditional guilty plea to the charge of conspiracy to commit a felony. The issue reserved in the conditional plea involved the lower court's denial of the Appellant's motion to dismiss the indictment. The Appellant maintains that the trial court should have dismissed the indictment against him because the Appellee, the State of West Virginia, failed to try the Appellant within 180 days from the date on which the Prosecuting Attorney of Preston County received the Appellant's request for disposition of the charges against him sent pursuant to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act ("IADA"). See W.Va.Code §§ 62-14-1 to -7 (2000). Based upon a review of the facts, the parties' briefs and all other matters submitted before this Court, we affirm the lower court's decision.

I. FACTS

On December 12, 1996, the Preston County Sheriff's Department filed a criminal complaint in the Magistrate Court of Preston County alleging that the Appellant committed a burglary in Preston County on or about June 27, 1996. Based upon this complaint, the magistrate issued an arrest warrant for the Appellant. On December 27, 1996, the Appellant began serving a two-year prison term in the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio for charges relating to burglary, forgery and theft.

On October 1, 1997, the Preston County Sheriff's Department faxed the arrest warrant and complaint issued in Preston County to the Marion Correctional Institution. The sheriff's department also requested notification of the Appellant's release. It is uncontroverted that this act constituted the filing of a detainer against the Appellant. See W.Va.Code §§ 62-14-1 to -7.

On October 8, 1997, the Appellant signed a form entitled "Inmate's Notice of Place of Imprisonment and Request for Disposition of Indictments, Informations, or Complaints." The Appellant's account at the prison was debited in the amount of $2.87 for the certified mailing of one of the Appellant's request for disposition.¹ The parties stipulated below that the Ohio prison officials then sent a copy of the signed request by certified mail to the Prosecuting Attorney of Preston County and that it was received on October 14, 1997. The prison officials, however, neglected to send the same signed request to the Preston County Circuit Clerk's Office, despite the fact that the form itself designates one copy for this express purpose.

On February 10, 1999, the Marion Correctional Institution released the Appellant to the custody of the Preston County Sheriff's Department, pursuant to the outstanding detainer which had been filed some sixteen months earlier. The Appellant was indicted on June 1, 1999, for the acts alleged in the complaint that was filed against him on December 12, 1996. The Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment one week later, raising the specific IADA issue which is currently before this Court on appeal. The lower court, relying upon the United States Supreme Court's decision in Fex v. Michigan, 507 U.S. 43, 113 S.Ct. 1085, 122 L.Ed.2d 406 (1993),² denied the Appellant's motion to dismiss, stating that

the defendant, Mr. Somerlot, has not caused his request for final disposition to be actually delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer's jurisdiction as required under Article III of the Agreement on Detainers. This is in accord with the Flex [sic] decision to the effect that the 180 day time period under the Agreement on Detainers "does not commence until the prisoner's request for final disposition of the charges against him has actually been delivered to the Court and the prosecuting officer of the jurisdiction that the [sic] lodged the detainer against him." Flex [sic] at page 1091. [Emphasis added]. While Article IX of the Agreement on Detainers (W.Va.Code § 62-14-1) states that the agreement is to be liberally construed so as to effectuate its purposes the Court finds and concludes that the defendant was required to strictly comply with the requirements of Article III which require that notice to the prosecuting officer and appropriate court be actually received. The defendant had the ability to determine whether his requests had been properly mailed (i.e. by the debiting of his prison account for two certified mailings not one and by the return receipt cards for the mailing of his requests or by contacting the Court itself). The burden of "causing" the notices to be properly delivered was the defendant's.

It is this ruling which forms the basis for the present appeal.

II. ISSUE

The issue before the Court of whether the Appellee was required to try the Appellant within the 180 day time limit prescribed by the IADA, notwithstanding the failure of the Ohio prison authorities to send the Appellant's request for final disposition to the Circuit Court of Preston County, is one of first impression. The Appellant argues that the lower court, by failing to dismiss the indictment, improperly placed the burden on the Appellant to send the request despite the language in Article III of West Virginia Code § 62-14-1, which directly places the burden on an official of the facility having custody of the Appellant to send out the Appellant's notice and request for final disposition. In other words, the Appellant argues that as long as he substantially complies with the provisions of the IADA, the burden should then shift to the state to bring him to trial within 180 days. The Appellant also argues that the lower court incorrectly ruled that the Appellant must strictly comply with the requirements of Article III of the IADA. In contrast, the Appellee maintains that the lower court was correct in ruling that actual delivery of the request for disposition to the prosecuting officer and the court of the jurisdiction that lodged the detainer against the Appellant must occur before the 180-day time limit commences.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The Appellant seeks review of the lower court's interpretation of the IADA. "To the extent this issue presents purely a question of law and statutory interpretation, our review is plenary and de novo." State v. Smith, 198 W.Va. 702, 707, 482 S.E.2d 687, 692 (1996). Additionally, in State ex rel. Modie v. Hill, 191 W.Va. 100, 443 S.E.2d 257 (1994), we recognized that "the Agreement on Detainers, W.Va.Code, 62-14-1, et seq., [i]s an interstate compact to which the State is a party by statutory enactment." 191 W.Va. at 102, 443 S.E.2d at 259. As the United States Supreme Court has stated, "[t]he Agreement is a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact within the Compact Clause, U.S. Const., Art.I, § 10, cl. 3, and thus is a federal law subject to federal construction." Carchman v. Nash, 473 U.S. 716, 719, 105 S.Ct. 3401, 87 L.Ed.2d 516 (1985).³

IV. DISCUSSION

We begin by examining the salient provisions of the IADA. Specifically, Article III of West Virginia Code § 62-14-1, provides, in pertinent part:

(a) Whenever a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution of a party state, and whenever during the continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in any other party state any untried indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty days after he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer's jurisdiction written notice of the place of his imprisonment and his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment, information or complaint: Provided, That for good cause shown in open court, the prisoner or his counsel being present, the court having jurisdiction of the matter may grant any necessary or reasonable continuance. The request of the prisoner shall be accompanied by a certificate of the appropriate official having custody of the prisoner, stating the term of commitment under which the prisoner is being held, the time already served, the time remaining to be served on the sentence, the amount of good time earned, the time of parole eligibility of the prisoner, and any decisions of the state parole agency relating to the prisoner.

(b) The written notice and request for final disposition referred to in paragraph (a) hereof shall be given or sent by the prisoner to the warden, superintendent or other official having custody of him, who shall promptly forward it together with the certificate to the appropriate prosecuting official and court by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested.

Id. (emphasis added). Further, Article V(c) of West Virginia Code § 62-14-1 provides:

If the appropriate authority shall refuse or fail to accept temporary custody of said person, or in the event that an action on the indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which the detainer has been lodged is not brought to trial within the period provided in Article III or Article IV hereof, the appropriate court of the jurisdiction where the

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