Ward Evans v. Perry Phelps ( 2012 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 10-3387
_____________
WARD T. EVANS,
Appellant
v.
WARDEN PERRY PHELPS; ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF
DELAWARE
_____________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Delaware
(No. 1-09-cv-00488)
District Judge: Honorable Joseph J. Farnan, Jr.
Argued March 19, 2012
____________
Before: RENDELL, FISHER, and CHAGARES, Circuit Judges.
(Filed: April 12, 2012)
Michael G. Paul, Esquire (Argued)
1 Highland Avenue
Metuchen, NJ 08840
Counsel for Appellant
Gregory E. Smith, Esquire (Argued)
Department of Justice
820 North French Street
Carvel Office Building, 6th Floor
Wilmington, DE 19801
1
Counsel for Appellees
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OPINION
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CHAGARES, Circuit Judge.
Ward T. Evans appeals the District Court’s denial of his request for habeas corpus
relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Evans was convicted in 1982 of first-degree rape and
sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. At the time of his conviction,
Delaware law offered two paths toward early release from prison. In 2005, the Delaware
Supreme Court interpreted relevant state statutes to afford offenders with life sentences,
like Evans, recourse to only one of the early release mechanisms. Evans contends that
the Delaware court’s construction of the statutes unforeseeably enlarged his sentence in
violation of his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. We disagree, and will affirm
the District Court’s denial of Evans’s habeas petition.
I
Delaware law extends to most prisoners sentenced before 1990 two potential
avenues for early release from prison. The parole statute, Del. Code Ann. tit. 11, § 4346,
provides that prisoners may be released on parole after serving one-third of the term
imposed by the sentencing court, reduced by any accumulated merit or good behavior
credits (together, “good time credits”). Del. Code Ann. tit. 11, § 4346(a).1 For the
purposes of parole eligibility, the statute measures the length of a life sentence with the
1
“Good time” or “good behavior” credits are awarded to prisoners who comply with
prison disciplinary rules. Del. Code Ann. tit. 11, §§ 4381, 4382.
2
possibility of parole as a “fixed term of 45 years.” Id. § 4346(c). Delaware empowers
the Board of Parole to grant or deny parole, in its discretion, by using the “best interest of
society” standard as a touchstone. Id. §§ 4346(a), 4347(c).
The second avenue, known as “conditional release,” is defined as “the release of
an offender from incarceration to the community by reason of diminution of the period of
confinement through merit and good behavior credits.” Id. § 4302(5). Section 4348 of
title 11 of the Delaware Code, the conditional release statute, provides, in relevant part:
A person having served that person’s term or terms in incarceration, less
such merit and good behavior credits as have been earned, shall, upon
release, be deemed as released on parole until the expiration of the
maximum term or terms for which the person is sentenced.
Id. § 4348. A person’s “term . . . in incarceration” is his maximum period of
incarceration, as set by the sentencing judge. Jackson v. Multi-Purpose Criminal Justice
Facility, 700 A.2d 1203, 1206 (Del. 1997), overruled in part by Crosby v. State, 824 A.2d
894 (Del. 2003) (per curiam). Delaware authorities record the end date of an inmate’s
maximum term of incarceration on a “status sheet.” Section 4348 requires state
authorities to release an inmate who has reached his “short-term release date” — that is,
his maximum term of incarceration, less accrued good time credits. Crosby, 824 A.2d at
899; Jackson, 700 A.2d at 1206.
The parole and conditional release statutes are similar in certain respects. Both
account for good time credits in calculating a reduction in the length of confinement.
Snyder v. Andrews, 708 A.2d 237, 244 (Del. 1998); Jackson, 700 A.2d at 1206. And
once an inmate is released from prison, either by way of parole or conditional release, he
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remains under state supervision and his release depends on compliance with conditions of
parole. Jackson, 700 A.2d at 1206. The statutes also differ in important respects. While
the decision to release an inmate on parole under § 4346 lies within the discretion of the
Parole Board, conditional release under § 4348 is automatic. Crosby, 824 A.2d at 899;
Jackson, 700 A.2d at 1206. In addition, § 4346(c) defines a life sentence with the
possibility of parole as a fixed term of 45 years, but § 4348 makes no mention of an
alternative definition for a life term.2
II
On the evening of November 12, 1981, Evans convinced his brother’s 14-year-old
stepdaughter to accompany him to a liquor store. During the drive home, he took the
vehicle on a detour and raped her. A Delaware grand jury indicted Evans on a single
count of rape in the first degree.3 He was convicted following a jury trial and, in May
1983, sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. His conviction was
affirmed on direct appeal. Evans’s status sheet listed his maximum release date as
“death” and his maximum sentence, less good time credits, as “life.”
On January 8, 2004, Evans filed a motion for correction of sentence in the
Delaware Superior Court. See Del. Superior Ct. Crim. R. 35(a). He argued that his
sentence was unlawful because his status sheet did not identify a conditional release date
2
In 1989, the General Assembly enacted the Truth-in-Sentencing Act, 67 Del. Laws, ch.
130, Del. Code. Ann. tit. 11, § 4354, which prospectively abolished parole. Crosby, 824
A.2d at 899. Because Evans committed his crime in 1982, parole remains an option for
him. For the most part, the Truth-in-Sentencing Act did not affect the conditional release
option in § 4348. Id. at 900.
3
That crime was set forth in Del. Code Ann. tit. 11, § 764 (repealed 1986).
4
calculated at a fixed term of 45 years, minus accumulated good time credits. The
Superior Court denied Evans’s motion without comment, but the Delaware Supreme
Court reversed. Evans v. State (Evans I), 2004 Del. LEXIS 545 (Del. Nov. 23, 2004).
The court explained that Crosby v. State, a case that had been decided the previous year,
made Evans’s sentence unlawful. Id. at *6. The court in Crosby held that “section 4348
incorporates section 4346(c)’s definition of a life sentence as a fixed term of 45 years.”
824 A.2d at 899. In reaching that result, the court overruled Jackson v. Multi-Purpose
Criminal Justice Facility, an earlier case that construed § 4348 not to incorporate §
4346’s life sentence definition and regarded defendants serving life sentences as
ineligible for conditional release under § 4348. Id. The Crosby decision, the Delaware
Supreme Court reasoned, rendered Evans’s sentence unlawful because his maximum
release date did not reflect a 45-year term of imprisonment. Evans I, 2004 Del. LEXIS
545, at *6.
Evans I generated swift political backlash. Within months of the decision, the
General Assembly enacted, and the Governor signed into law, House Bill No. 31, 75 Del.
Laws, c. 1, § 1, which declared Evans I “null and void.” The Delaware Supreme Court
promptly agreed to reconsider Evans I and to address the constitutionality of House Bill
No. 31. In a lengthy opinion, it withdrew Evans I, ruled that Evans’s sentence is lawful,
and struck down House Bill No. 31 as a violation of separation of powers principles.
Evans v. State (Evans II), 872 A.2d 539, 553, 558 (Del. 2005) (per curiam). To explain
its about-face, the court clarified the scope of Jackson and Crosby. In cases involving
violent offenders sentenced to life in prison before 1990, the court stated, Jackson
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controls. Id. at 557. For those individuals, good time credits may accelerate the date of
parole eligibility under § 4346. Id. But good time credits have no bearing on a short-
term release date pursuant to § 4348, for Jackson offenders are ineligible for conditional
release. Id. at 557-58. In cases involving non-violent habitual offenders sentenced to life
in prison with the possibility of parole after 1990, by contrast, Crosby controls. Id. at
557. Those individuals may use good time credits to accelerate a conditional date of
release, measured against a life sentence pegged at 45 years. Id. To the extent that
Crosby purported to overrule Jackson, the court explained, the statement was dicta. Id. at
558. Finding that Jackson controlled Evans’s appeal, the court held that Evans “is not
eligible for conditional release and must remain incarcerated until his death, unless he is
granted parole.” Id.
After losing in Evans II, Evans filed another motion for correction of sentence,
arguing, among other things, that the Delaware Supreme Court’s construction of §§ 4346
and 4348 infringed his federal due process rights. The Superior Court denied the motion.
Agreeing that “there was no due process violation arising from its statutory
interpretation” in Evans II, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed. Evans v. State, 918
A.2d 1170 (Table) (Del. Jan. 24, 2007).
Having exhausted his state remedies, Evans filed the underlying petition for a writ
of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. The
petition raised three claims: (1) the Delaware Supreme Court’s construction of state law
in Evans II deprived Evans of good time credits earned in anticipation of early release, in
violation of his due process rights; (2) the jury instructions given at trial were unlawful;
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and (3) the prosecutor elicited perjured testimony. The case was transferred to this Court
as a second or successive habeas petition. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). We denied
leave to file a second or successive petition insofar as Evans sought to assert claims of
trial court error and prosecutorial misconduct. Insofar as he wished to assert a claim
challenging the execution of his sentence, we concluded that such a claim would not
constitute a second or successive petition and thus needed no authorization. We
transferred the petition back to the District Court to consider Evans’s first claim.
Evans maintained that the Delaware Supreme Court’s construction of § 4348 in
Evans II unforeseeably withdrew from him the option of conditional release and the value
of his accrued good time credits for accelerating conditional release. By unexpectedly
interpreting the statute in this way and by applying the interpretation retroactively to his
case, Evans argued, the court infringed his due process rights. The District Court
disagreed and denied habeas relief. Evans sought a certificate of appealability from this
Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253. We appointed counsel and granted a certificate of
appealability only on the issue of “whether the Appellant’s Due Process rights were
violated by the ret[ro]active application of the Delaware Supreme Court’s decision in
Evans v. State, 872 A.2d 539, 558 (Del. 2005).”
III
The District Court had jurisdiction over Evans’s petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§
1331 and 2254(a). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(c)(1)(A).
We exercise plenary review over the District Court’s denial of a petition for a writ of
habeas corpus, reviewing the state court’s decision under the same standard the District
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Court was bound to apply. Thomas v. Horn, 570 F.3d 105, 113 (3d Cir. 2009). That
standard was set by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L.
No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214. Federal courts may issue habeas relief “with respect to a
claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings” only if the claim
“resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,
clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 785 (2011).
IV
Evans contends that, through its construction of § 4348 in Evans II, the Delaware
Supreme Court expanded the punishment accompanying his conviction in a manner that
was not foreseeable at the time of his criminal act. In his view, § 4348 afforded no fair
warning that it excludes violent offenders sentenced to life in prison before 1990. Evans
claims that the Delaware court’s unexpected and indefensible constriction of § 4348
relief, applied retroactively to him, amounts to a denial of the due process of law.
In Bouie v. City of Columbia and Rogers v. Tennessee, the Supreme Court
established that the Due Process Clause forbids a court from giving retroactive effect to
its unforeseeable enlargement of a statute defining criminal conduct. Rogers v.
Tennessee, 532 U.S. 451, 462 (2001); Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 354-55
(1964). Deeply rooted in enduring understandings of due process, the Court explained, is
the principle that a criminal statute must give fair notice of the conduct that it makes
criminal. Bouie, 378 U.S. at 350-51 (citing United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617
(1954)). Deprivation of the right to fair notice can result both from vague criminal
8
statutes and from “an unforeseeable and retroactive judicial expansion of narrow and
precise statutory language.” Id. at 352. “If a judicial construction of a criminal statute is
unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to
the conduct in issue,” it must apply prospectively to satisfy the defendant’s right to due
process of law. Id. at 354 (quotation marks omitted).
Bouie and Rogers stand for the principle that judicial statutory construction that
attaches criminal liability “to what previously had been innocent conduct” impairs due
process, Rogers, 532 U.S. at 459, but it is less clear whether the decisions encompass
statutory construction that unexpectedly broadens punishment for conduct already made
criminal. Assuming, for the purposes of this appeal, that they do, the denial of Evans’s
due process claim is not contrary to or an unreasonable application of the cases. When
Evans committed his crime — the relevant point in time for the purposes of judging
foreseeability — the Delaware Supreme Court had not addressed the interplay between
§§ 4346 and 4348. Its subsequent pronouncements in Jackson, Crosby, and Evans I
therefore do not affect the question whether Evans had fair notice that violent defendants
sentenced to life in prison are ineligible for § 4348 relief. As the District Court correctly
reasoned, the plain text of § 4348 contains no hint that it treats a life sentence as anything
other than a life sentence. And, as the Delaware Supreme Court later explained in
Jackson, the word “term” in § 4348 implies a fixed term rather than a life sentence. 700
A.2d at 1207. This language supplies fair warning that conditional release is not
available to certain offenders sentenced to a term of natural life rather than a fixed term
of years.
9
It is true, as Evans argues, that one might read § 4348 to incorporate § 4346(c)’s
definition of a life sentence as a fixed term if one chooses to read the statutes
referentially. Indeed, the Delaware Supreme Court later did so in Crosby and Evans I.
But the Bouie and Rogers standard requires more than a possibility that a statute might be
construed in a certain manner. It is just as likely, on a plain reading of the text, that §
4348 does not incorporate § 4346(c)’s definition of a life sentence, making certain
offenders serving life sentences ineligible for conditional release. Where a statute
possesses more than one plausible reading, it is foreseeable for a court to choose one of
those readings. Cf. Rogers, 532 U.S. at 461 (expressing concern about hamstringing the
“normal judicial processes” of state courts in an “evolving legal system”). It follows that
the construction given § 4348 in Evans II was not “unexpected and indefensible by
reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue.” Bouie, 378
U.S. at 354; see also Rogers, 532 U.S. at 462. The Delaware Supreme Court did not act
contrary to or unreasonably apply clearly established federal law in finding that Evans
II’s construction of § 4348 comports with the Due Process Clause.4
4
At oral argument, Evans urged that his ineligibility for conditional release was itself a
due process violation. That view is mistaken. Evans has no right under the Constitution
to obtain conditional release from prison before the expiration of his valid life sentence.
Swarthout v. Cooke, 131 S. Ct. 859, 862 (2011) (per curiam); Greenholtz v. Inmates of
Neb. Penal & Corr. Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 7 (1979). To the extent that he argues that
state officials withdrew from him a state-created liberty interest in conditional release,
Evans forgets that the Delaware Supreme Court explained, in Evans II, that Delaware law
does not vest in offenders sentenced to life any interest in conditional release. 872 A.2d
at 557-58. We have no warrant to question the holding of Evans II, a decision that rests
squarely on state law. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a); Swarthout, 131 S. Ct. at 861; Wilson v.
Corcoran, 131 S. Ct. 13, 16 (2010) (per curiam). Nor did Evans II’s construction of §
4348 deprive Evans of earned merit or good behavior credits. Cf. Superintendent, Mass.
10
V
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Corr. Inst. at Walpole v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 455 (1985) (holding that due process requires
“some evidence” to support official revocation of good time credits). He has already
benefitted from those credits, which hastened the date on which he became eligible for
parole under § 4346. Now eligible, Evans has thrice received consideration before the
Parole Board. And parole remains available to him as a potential avenue toward early
release.
Evans also urged “a limited remand . . . for the purpose [of] interpreting, pursuant
to the Delaware Code, the actual term of his parolable life sentence, and incorporating,
pursuant to Pepper v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 1229 (2011), the issue of the petitioner’s
rehabilitative efforts while incarcerated.” Evans Rule 28(j) Letter. The argument is
unexhausted, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A), and beyond the scope of the certificate of
appealability, see § 2253. It is also inapposite, for Pepper concerned interpretation of
federal sentencing statutes, while Evans is incarcerated pursuant to Delaware law.
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