Ex Parte Noyola

215 S.W.3d 862, 2007 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 227, 2007 WL 601620
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 28, 2007
DocketAP-75,428
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 215 S.W.3d 862 (Ex Parte Noyola) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex Parte Noyola, 215 S.W.3d 862, 2007 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 227, 2007 WL 601620 (Tex. 2007).

Opinion

OPINION

KEASLER, J.,

delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Billy Noyola challenges the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s refusal to grant him street-time credit under Section 508.283, Texas Government Code. We find that Noyola is entitled to the time credit because his conviction for aggravated assault on a peace officer, a third-degree felony, was not an offense or a statutory precursor to an offense listed in Section 508.149(a), Texas Government Code, when his parole was revoked.

Facts and Procedural Background

On August 14, 1987, Noyola committed the felony offense of burglary of a habitation. In January 1988, Noyola pled guilty and entered a plea of true to the enhancement paragraph in the indictment, which alleged that Noyola had previously been convicted of burglary of a habitation in 1984. The trial judge found Noyola guilty, and after determining that the enhancement allegation was true, the judge sentenced Noyola to eighteen years’ imprisonment. Noyola did not appeal.

Noyola committed the offense of aggravated assault on a peace officer, in violation of Section 22.02 of the Penal Code, on September 27, 1992. On December 10, 1992, Noyola was convicted of this offense and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, to be served concurrently with the remainder of his eighteen-year sentence for burglary of a habitation. Although the trial court’s judgment designates the offense as a second-degree felony, the State, after a *864 thorough review of the records in that cause, submits that Noyola was actually convicted of the third-degree-felony offense of aggravated assault on a peace officer. Our own review of the record confirms that Noyola’s conviction is for a third-degree-felony offense.

Noyola was released to parole on April 10, 2000. Approximately four years later, on April 5, 2004, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) issued a pre-revo-cation warrant. Noyola’s parole was later revoked.

After exhausting his administrative remedies, 1 Noyola filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus challenging TDCJ’s refusal to credit his eighteen-year sentence under Section 508.283(c) of the Texas Government Code for time he spent on parole. Noyola contends that TDCJ is improperly denying him time credit due to his 1992 conviction for aggravated assault on a peace officer.

Noyola was confined pursuant to the ten-year sentence when his parole was revoked and when he filed his habeas application. Noyola recently completed his ten-year sentence. The fact that Noyola discharged his ten-year sentence does not render his time-credit claim moot, however, because he is still confined under his eighteen-year sentence for burglary of a habitation.

In its second supplemental answer, the State argues that Noyola’s 1992 conviction for aggravated assault on a peace officer in the third degree renders him ineligible for street-time credit. Noyola is ineligible, according to the State, because he was ineligible for release on mandatory supervision under the statute in effect when he committed the offense of aggravated assault on a peace officer, Article 42.18, Section 8(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Agreeing with the State, the trial judge has recommended that relief be denied, stating “Based upon the law in effect at the time Applicant committed the offense of aggravated assault on a peace officer, the Court recommends denial of all relief requested in the application for writ of habeas corpus.”

We filed and set this case to decide whether an inmate’s eligibility for street-time credit under Section 508.283(c) of the Government Code is controlled by the inmate’s eligibility for release to mandatory supervision. Stated another way: Is the mandatory supervision statute in effect at the time the inmate committed the offense used to determine the inmate’s eligibility for time credit under Section 508.283(c), Texas Government Code, when the inmate’s release to mandatory supervision or parole is revoked? The answer is no.

Law and Analysis

Section 508.283(c), commonly referred to as the “street-time credit statute,” applies to all revocations of parole and mandatory supervision that occur on or after September 1, 2001. 2 When Noyo-la’s parole was revoked the statute read as follows:

If the parole, mandatory supervision, or conditional pardon of a person other than a person described by Section 508.149(a) is revoked, the person may be required to serve the remaining portion of the sentence on which the person was released. For a person who on the date *865 of issuance of a warrant or summons initiating the revocation process is subject to a sentence the remaining portion of which is greater than the amount of time from the date of the person’s release to the date of issuance of the warrant or summons, the remaining portion is to be served without credit for the time from the date of the person’s release to the date of revocation. For a person who on the date of issuance of the warrant or summons is subject to a sentence the remaining portion of which is less than the amount of time from the date of the person’s release to the date of issuance of the warrant or summons, the remaining portion is to be served without credit for an amount of time equal to the remaining portion of the sentence on the date of issuance of the warrant or citation. 3

Therefore, under Section 508.283(c), an inmate may be entitled to credit for time served while released on parole or mandatory supervision if the inmate meets the following two conditions: (1) the inmate is not “a person described by Section 508.149(a)” of the Texas Government Code 4 ; and (2) on the date that the pre-revocation warrant or summons initiating the revocation process is issued, the remaining portion of the inmate’s sentence is less than the time the inmate spent on parole. 5 The remaining portion of the inmate’s sentence “refers to that part of the sentence remaining at the RELEASE date, less time spent on parole [or mandatory supervision].” 6 Section 508.283(c) serves to “lessen the sentence of non-violent parole violators (versus violent parole violators) whose time spent out on parole exceeded their remaining sentence.” 7

Because Section 508.283(c) refers to Section 508.149(a), we turn our attention to that provision. When describing Section 508.149(a) in the past, we have said that it “sets out a list of offenses that render an inmate ineligible for mandatory supervision. These offenses are described by code, section number, and the degree of the felony.” 8 The most serious or violent offenses are included in the list. 9 Since the 2001 amendment to Section 508.283(c), the enumerated offenses in Section 508.149(a) have included current offenses and prior convictions.

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Bluebook (online)
215 S.W.3d 862, 2007 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 227, 2007 WL 601620, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-noyola-texcrimapp-2007.