Pate v. Department of Corrections

466 S.W.3d 480, 2015 WL 4967132
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 20, 2015
Docket2013-SC-000558-DG; 2013-SC-000559-DG
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 466 S.W.3d 480 (Pate v. Department of Corrections) 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
Pate v. Department of Corrections, 466 S.W.3d 480, 2015 WL 4967132 (Ky. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT BY

JUSTICE CUNNINGHAM

In April of 2003, Appellant, Lawrence E. Pate, was indicted by a Bracken Circuit Court Grand Jury on the charge of manufacturing methamphetamine, second offense, which is a Class A felony. Appellant committed the offense in October of 2002, while awaiting final sentencing for manufacturing methamphetamine in Pendleton County. Prior to trial, the Commonwealth presented Appellant with two separate plea deals. Both offers would have amended the charge of manufacturing methamphetamine, second offense, down to criminal attempt to manufacture methamphetamine, first offense. In addition, the Commonwealth agreed to recommend a sentence of five years imprisonment to run consecutively to the twenty year sentence Appellant received in the Pendleton County case. Appellant’s counsel advised him to reject both plea offers and risk going to trial, as he believed Appellant would likely receive a concurrent sentence. Accordingly, Appellant proceeded to trial in 2005 and was found guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine, second offense.

Kentucky State Police Detective Chuck Reetin testified during the Truth-in-Sentencing stage of the trial. Detective Rec-tin advised the jury that Appellant committed a “non-violent” offense. As such, Appellant would become eligible for parole after serving twenty percent of his sentence, or eight years if sentenced to forty years or more. 501 Kentucky Administrative Regulations 1:030 § 3(l)(c) (“KAR”). Detective Reetin also informed the jury that Appellant’s sentence could be reduced through good time credits, in addition to other meritorious credits. The jury ultimately recommended the minimum sentence of twenty years in prison.

Prior to the trial court ruling on Appellant’s final sentence, the Commonwealth’s attorney and Appellant’s counsel both informed the trial court that they believed Appellant, as a non-violent offender, would become eligible for parole after serving only four years of the recommended twenty-year sentence. Appellant’s counsel further urged the trial court to allow Appellant to serve his sentence concurrently with the Pendleton County sentence. The trial court ultimately sentenced Appellant to twenty years imprisonment. However, the trial court stated that it was required by KRS 533.060(3) to order Appellant’s twenty year sentence to run consecutively to his Pendleton County sentence, for a [484]*484total of forty-years imprisonment. This Court subsequently upheld Appellant’s conviction and sentence in 2007. See Pate v. Commonwealth, 243 S.W.3d 327 (Ky.2007).

When Appellant began serving his sentence, the Department of Corrections (“DOC”) classified him as a non-violent offender. Over four years after he was sentenced, the DOC notified Appellant that his non-violent offender status had been changed to violent offender. Due to Appellant’s reclassification, his parole eligibility and sentence expiration dates were recalculated. As a violent offender, Appellant cannot be released on parole until he serves at least twenty years of his forty-year sentence.1 See KRS 439.3401(3); 501 KAR 1:030 § 3(l)(e) (To become eligible for parole, a violent offender must serve eighty-five percent of the sentence received or twenty years, whichever is less). Moreover, now that Appellant is classified as a violent offender, he may not obtain non-educational, good time credit as provided for in KRS 197.045(l)(b)(l), nor may he receive sentencing credit if “the credit reduces the term of imprisonment to less than eighty-five percent (85%) of the sentence.” KRS 439.3401(4). In light of these harsh sentencing restrictions, Appellant requested that the DOC reinstate his non-violent offender classification. The DOC explained that it had modified Appellant’s status due to its changed interpretation of the “violent offender” statutory definition.

The DOC, as an administrative agency, is tasked with interpreting statutes and regulations that it is charged with implementing. See Bd. of Trs. of the Judicial Form Ret. Sys. v. Att’y Gen. of the Commonwealth, 132 S.W.3d 770, 786-87 (Ky.2003). One of those statutes is KRS 439.3401, which this Court often refers to as the Violent Offender Statute.

Prior to 2006, the DOC interpreted the statute’s “violent offender” definition to include those prisoners who were serving time for the commission of a Class A felony only if the crime was one “involving the death of the victim or serious physical injury to a victim.” See KRS 439.3401(1), amended by KRS 439.3401(l)(a)-(i)(2006). Under this definition, the DOC did not regard Appellant as a violent offender because there was not an identifiable victim to Appellant’s crime. However, as will be discussed further, the General Assembly amended KRS 439.3401(1) in 2006 to clarify that the violent offender classification should be given to all Class A felony offenders, regardless of whether the victim suffered death or serious physical injury. Based on this amendment, the DOC changed its interpretation of the violent offender statute and classified all prisoners convicted of committing Class A felonies as violent offenders.

After Appellant exhausted all administrative remedies, he filed a declaration of rights petition in the Franklin Circuit Court. As grounds for his petition, Appellant argued that the 2006 amendment to KRS 439.3401 constituted an ex post facto violation. The Franklin Circuit Court dismissed Appellant’s petition at the DOC’s request. Appellant subsequently appealed the order of dismissal. See Pate v. Ky. Dep’t of Corr., 2009-CA-000734. In addi[485]*485tion, Appellant filed a motion for clarification of his sentence in the Bracken Circuit Court. In support of his motion, Appellant alerted the trial court that the DOC had impermissibly increased his prison time by reclassifying him as a violent offender. The Bracken Circuit Court denied. Appellant’s motion, after which he appealed. See Pate v. Commonwealth, 2009-CA-002110. Lastly, Appellant moved the Bracken Circuit Court to vacate, set aside, or correct his judgment of conviction and sentence pursuant to Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure (“RCr”) 11.42, or, in the alternative, Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure (“CR”) 60.02. Appellant asserted numerous arguments in his motion to support his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, all of which the Bracken Circuit Court denied without the benefit of a hearing.

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Bluebook (online)
466 S.W.3d 480, 2015 WL 4967132, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pate-v-department-of-corrections-ky-2015.