Young v. McKune

280 F. Supp. 2d 1250, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15857, 2003 WL 22102127
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedJuly 30, 2003
DocketCIV. A. 02-3005-CM
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 280 F. Supp. 2d 1250 (Young v. McKune) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Young v. McKune, 280 F. Supp. 2d 1250, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15857, 2003 WL 22102127 (D. Kan. 2003).

Opinion

*1252 MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MURGUIA, District Judge.

Plaintiff filed the instant action seeking damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Specifically, plaintiff claims defendants violated his constitutional rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments by miscalculating his sentence under a newly amended Kansas Administrative Regulation. This matter comes before the court on defendant Charles Cavenee’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 24) and defendants David McKune, John Cooling, James Barkley, Tom Vohls, Shelly Turner, and William Cummings’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 40).

I. Facts

On November 7, 1986, plaintiff was sentenced in the District Court of Wyandotte County, Kansas to three to ten years for aggravated assault. The sentence was to run consecutively with a previous sentence plaintiff had received in Missouri. In April 1987, plaintiff was released from Kansas to Missouri. In August 1990, plaintiff was paroled by Missouri and released to the Kansas Department of Corrections. In July 1990, plaintiff was paroled by Kansas and was to be supervised by a Kansas parole officer for both his Kansas and Missouri paroles.

In March 1992, both states issued parole violation warrants. In March 1993, plaintiff was arrested in Missouri on the Missouri parole violation warrant. While plaintiff was incarcerated, Kansas caused a parole violation detainer to be placed on him. Plaintiff signed a notice of the de-tainer in May 1993. Plaintiff was released by Missouri in October 1999 to the State of Kansas.

The issue in this case is whether plaintiffs constitutional rights were violated as a result of the way in which the Kansas Board of Corrections (KBC) applied Kansas Administrative Regulation 44-6-136 in deeming the time plaintiff spent from March 1993 to October 1999 as delinquent time lost on parole (DTLOP).

A. Pertinent Administrative Regulations

At the time plaintiff committed his crime and was sentenced in Kansas, Kansas Administrative Regulation 44-6-136 provided in pertinent part:

Delinquent time lost on parole (DTLOP).

(a) Delinquent time lost on parole shall be computed from the date on which the secretary’s parole violation warrant ...
(b) Delinquent time lost on parole shall only accumulate during the period of time in which the offender is classified as an absconder. Once the . initial warrant has been served, delinquent time shall stop accumulating and time after service of the warrant shall not be considered ....

Kan. Admin. Reg. 44-6-136 (pre-amendment) (emphasis added). As of May 1, 1998, § 44-6-136 was amended, with the pertinent amendment being subsection (c), which reads as follows:

(c) in spite of the provision of subsection (b), if the parolee or conditional re-leasee is arrested in another state for reasons other than the Kansas parole violation warrant, delinquent time shall continue to the date the parolee or conditional releasee is first available to be returned to Kansas.

Kan. Admin. Reg. 44-6-136 (emphasis added).

Thus, before the regulation was amended, delinquent lost time stopped accumulating once the parole warrant was served. Under the amended regulation, the parolee is assessed delinquent lost time for the *1253 entire period he is out of the State of Kansas if he was arrested for any reason other than the Kansas parole violation warrant. In the instant case, the KBC initially applied the amended version of § 44-6-136 and considered plaintiffs time spent in Missouri, seven years, six months, and one day to be exact, as DLTOP.

B. Plaintiff’s Grievance Process

Plaintiff maintained that the application of the amended version of § 44-6-136 was an ex post facto violation. Plaintiff appropriately filed a grievance at the unit team level. The unit team manager, defendant Barkley, referred the question presented to the chief records officer, defendant Cooling. Defendant Cooling reviewed the records of plaintiffs crimes and sentences. KDC responded to plaintiffs grievance as follows:

The Court made your Kansas sentence consecutive to your Missouri sentence. The policies and procedures of [KDC] establish that when the Court runs a term consecutive with another state the sentence begins date [sic] of the term is the date the [KDC] takes custody.... [Y]our sentence has been calculated in compliance with K.A.R.’s, IMPP’s, and the Regulations of the Secretary.

(Response to Grievance # AA20000510).

Plaintiff then appealed to the Department of Corrections’ designee, defendant Cummings, for review at the Secretary’s level. Defendant Cummings’s response on appeal expressly referred plaintiff to subsection (c) of the amended § 44-6-136, stating that, because plaintiff was “ ‘arrested in another state for reasons other than the Kansas parole violation warrant,’ delinquent time must continue, pursuant to [§ 44-6-136(c) ].” (Response to Appeal of Grievance # AA20000510).

Plaintiff then wrote to defendant Vohls, the Deputy Secretary of Parole Services, who in turn referred the matter to defendant Turner, who was the individual handling interstate compact matters at the time. Defendant Turner responded to plaintiff by describing the application of the amended version of § 44-6-136.

Having exhausted his administrative remedies, plaintiff filed a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court of Leavenworth County, Kansas. The district court found that plaintiff was entitled to have his sentence calculated in accordance with the regulations as they existed at the time he committed his crime (the pre-amended version), rather than in accordance with the amended version. The court stated, “Petitioner committed his crime prior to the 1998 amendment, and an application of the new regulation passed after that date, which is retrospective and which disadvantages petitioner, is a violation of the ex post facto laws.” (Young v. McKune, Case No. 1HC0005, District Court of Leavenworth County, June 7, 2002). KDC promptly recalculated plaintiff’s sentence in accordance with the 1986 version of § 44-6-136 and released plaintiff without further obligation.

II. Motion to Dismiss Standard

The court will dismiss a cause of action for failure to state a claim only when it appears beyond a doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of the theory of recovery that would entitle him or her to relief, Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45 — 46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957); Maher v. Durango Metals, Inc., 144 F.3d 1302, 1304 (10th Cir.1998), or when an issue of law is dispositive, Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 326, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989).

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Related

Young v. McKune
85 F. App'x 723 (Tenth Circuit, 2004)

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Bluebook (online)
280 F. Supp. 2d 1250, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15857, 2003 WL 22102127, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/young-v-mckune-ksd-2003.