Kassulke v. Briscoe-Wade

105 S.W.3d 403, 2003 WL 1389097
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedJune 12, 2003
Docket2000-SC-0166-DG
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 105 S.W.3d 403 (Kassulke v. Briscoe-Wade) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kassulke v. Briscoe-Wade, 105 S.W.3d 403, 2003 WL 1389097 (Ky. 2003).

Opinion

KELLER, Justice.

I. ISSUE

While on parole from a ten (10) year Kentucky prison sentence, Appellee was convicted of a felony offense in the State of Missouri. A Missouri trial court sentenced Appellee to five (5) years for the new conviction, but ordered its sentence to run concurrently with Appellee’s previous Kentucky sentence. Upon her return to Kentucky after twenty-one (21) months in the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections (“MDOC”), Appellee sought habeas corpus relief and a Kentucky circuit court released her from custody after determining that she was entitled to custody credit on her Kentucky sentence for the time that she was incarcerated in Missouri. Was Appellee entitled to credit against her Kentucky sentence for the time she served in Missouri? Because, in Kentucky, a parolee receives no credit against his or her sentence for the period of time spent on parole from that sentence, and the Missouri trial court could not create credit on Appellee’s Kentucky sentence by designating its own sentence to run concurrently with Kentucky’s, Appellee was not entitled to credit on her Kentucky sentence for the time she served in Missouri.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND 1

In 1982, Appellee received a Second-Degree PFO-enhanced, ten (10) year prison sentence for Second-Degree Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument from Henderson Circuit Court. After Appel-lee’s final sentencing for that offense, when the Kentucky Department of Corrections (“KDOC”) originally calculated serve-out dates for that sentence, Appellee’s maximum expiration date was in April 1992, and her minimum expiration date was in October 1989. In other words, if Appellee had remained continuously incarcerated until October 1989, and was credited with the full amount of statutory good time credit 2 at that time, she would be released from her Henderson Circuit Court sentence. And, if Appellee remained continuously incarcerated, but did not receive the maximum statutory good time credit, she would be released at some point after her initial minimum expiration date, but no later than April 1992, when she would have satisfied the sentence in fuh.

Appellee, however, did not remain continuously incarcerated until her sentence expired. Instead, she spent over twelve (12) years on parole following three (3) separate grants of parole from Kentucky *405 Parole Board — in 1984, 1987, and 1993. On each occasion, Appellee ultimately violated the terms and conditions of her parole release and was returned to custody. Accordingly, KDOC recalculated her maximum and minimum expiration dates as provided in KRS 439.344 without credit for the time that she had spent on parole. When, in 1993, Appellee was released for the third time on supervised parole, she absconded from parole supervision, traveled to Missouri, and while there committed and was convicted of a felony theft offense. In November 1996, a Missouri trial court sentenced her to a five (5) year term of imprisonment, but ordered its sentence to run concurrently with Appellee’s previous Kentucky sentence. The trial court’s order read, in relevant part:

Therefore, it is ordered and adjudged by the Court that said Defendant be and is hereby committed to the custody of the Department of Corrections, for a period of imprisonment of (5) Year(s), for the offense(s) charged; said sentence is to run concurrent with sentence Defendant is presently serving in the State of Kentucky. No opposition to Defendant serving said sentence in the State of Kentucky and receiving credit towards her Missouri Department of Corrections sentence from time in Kentucky. Defendant is sentenced to the Long Term Drug Treatment Program pursuant to § 217.362 RSMo., if qualified; and that Defendant stand so committed until this sentence is complied with or Defendant be otherwise discharged according to law. (Emphasis added).

It appears that both the Missouri trial court and Appellee contemplated that the MDOC would immediately release custody of her to Kentucky’s parole violation de-tainer — lodged by KDOC after it received notice of Appellee’s new felony conviction — so that Appellee could begin serving her concurrent Missouri sentence after being recommitted to a Kentucky correctional facility for violating parole on her existing Kentucky sentence. Despite the language contained in the Missouri trial court’s final judgment and the fact that KDOC officials notified Missouri on three (3) separate occasions that Kentucky desired Appellee’s return and asked Missouri to give KDOC thirty (30) days notice before releasing Appellee, the MDOC authorities instead incarcerated Appellee in various MDOC facilities for approximately eighteen (18) months between November 1996 and May 1998. In April 1997, in response to KDOC’s requests, the MDOC notified Kentucky that Appellee’s expected release date was July 30, 2001 — a date which, although identified in the correspondence as Appellee’s next “conditional release date,” actually represented Appel-lee’s “maximum aggregate release date” under the MDOC’s sentencing calculations. 3

Approximately a year later, on April 7, 1998, and apparently in response to a successful grievance filed by Appellee, the records officer of the facility where Appellant was incarcerated wrote to notify KDOC “that Inmate Wade is available for transportation to Kentucky. Please notify this office of your intentions with regard to Inmate Wade.” KDOC indicated its willingness to reclaim custody of Appellee, and informed MDOC that it would come to Missouri to take custody of Appellee in mid-May, 1998. The MDOC records offi *406 cer at Appellee’s institution then wrote KDOC confirming this arrangement and further stated:

Enclosed is a copy of the Sentence and Judgment from St. Louis County, Missouri indicating her Missouri charges are running concurrent with your time. Please mark your records to show that the Missouri Department of Corrections will need the inmate returned to us upon completion of your charges to serve any time remaining on her Missouri sentence.

Appellee was returned to Kentucky, and on June 3, 1998, the Kentucky Parole Board revoked Appellee’s parole following a final parole revocation hearing at which Appellee stipulated to her violation. Following her parole revocation, KDOC credited Appellee only with “P.V. Time Credit” for the forty-one (41) days between the time when the MDOC informed KDOC that Appellee was available for transport and the time when KDOC actually accepted custody of Appellee from Missouri, and did not credit against Appellee’s Kentucky sentence any of the remaining time that Appellee served on Missouri’s concurrent sentence. As such, KDOC calculated Ap-pellee’s maximum sentence expiration date on her Kentucky sentence to be August 6, 2004 and her minimum expiration date to be February 2, 2002. KDOC lodged the Missouri judgment as a detainer and informed the MDOC that it would notify Missouri prior to Appellee’s actual release date “in order for arrangements to be made to assume custody.”

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Morehead v. State
145 S.W.3d 922 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 2004)
Martin v. Chandler
122 S.W.3d 540 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 2003)
O'Conner v. Schneider
117 S.W.3d 666 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 2003)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
105 S.W.3d 403, 2003 WL 1389097, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kassulke-v-briscoe-wade-ky-2003.