Opinion
22-1837
03-27-2024
TERRENCE ARTHUR REASBY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. IOWA DISTRICT COURT FOR POLK COUNTY, Defendant-Appellee.
Martha J. Lucey, Appellate Defender, and Melinda J. Nye, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Andrew Duffelmeyer, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Certiorari to the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Coleman McAllister, Judge.
On writ of certiorari, a criminal defendant challenges the district court's denial of his motion for earned-time credit for the days he spent in a treatment program before his probation was revoked.
Martha J. Lucey, Appellate Defender, and Melinda J. Nye, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Andrew Duffelmeyer, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Tabor, P.J., Chicchelly, J., and Potterfield, S.J. [*]
POTTERFIELD, SENIOR JUDGE.
On writ of certiorari, Terrence Reasby challenges the district court's denial of his motion for earned-time credit for the days he spent in a treatment program before his probation was revoked.
Reasby petitioned for writ of certiorari, and our supreme court granted the petition before transferring the case to this court to rule on the merits.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Reasby pled guilty to two class "D" felonies in November 2019. With the application of the habitual-offender enhancement, he was sentenced to two suspended fifteen-year terms of incarceration, which he would be required to serve consecutively. Reasby was ordered to serve three years of probation.
While on probation, Reasby incurred a number of violations; he stipulated to violating the terms of his probation and pled guilty to escape. Following these issues, the district court continued Reasby's probation but ordered him to complete a substance-abuse program at Bridges of Iowa (Bridges) as a new condition of his probation. All told, Reasby spent 206 days at Bridges before his probation was ultimately revoked and his original sentence imposed following additional violations and criminal charges, to which Reasby pled guilty.
After he was committed to the custody of the director of the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC), Reasby filed a motion for earned-time credit. He asserted that the time he spent at Bridges, which he was ordered to do as part of his probation, qualified as "[t]ime served in . . . another facility" under Iowa Code section 903A.2(3) (2022), making him eligible for earned-time credit toward his sentence, which the DOC refused to give him. The State resisted, arguing that nothing in the statute itself nor in any case law provided that a defendant could receive earned-time credit for time spent at Bridges while on probation.
The district court denied Reasby's motion, and he challenges that ruling by writ of certiorari.
II. Discussion.
As he did to the district court, Reasby argues he should receive earned-time credit for the 206 days he spent at Bridges before his probation was revoked and he was committed to the custody of the director of the DOC. We review the district court's ruling for correction of errors at law. See State v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 801 N.W.2d 513, 517 (Iowa 2011) ("We normally review certiorari actions for correction of errors at law."); State v. Calvin, 839 N.W.2d 181, 184 (Iowa 2013) ("We review 'the trial court's application of pertinent sentencing statutes for correction of errors at law.'" (citation omitted)).
It is undisputed that Reasby correctly received "probation credit" under Iowa Code section 907.3(3) for the time he spent at Bridges. The question is whether Reasby is also entitled to earned-time credit under section 903A.2(3).
"Iowa Code section 903A.2 governs earned-time credits, section 903A.5(1) governs jail-time credit, and section 907.3(3) governs the probation credit." State v. Allensworth, 823 N.W.2d 411, 414 (Iowa 2012). Section 907.3(3), the statutory source for the probation credit, requires that "a person committed to an alternate jail facility or a community correctional residential treatment facility who has probation revoked shall be given credit for time served in the facility." And in State v. Hensley, 911 N.W.2d 678, 682-83, 684 (Iowa 2018), our supreme court concluded that Bridges-"a residential treatment facility, which is considered a quasi-incarceration sanction under level three on the corrections continuum"-qualified "as a community correctional residential treatment facility [under] section 907.3(3)," thereby entitling the defendant to probation credit for the days he resided at Bridges.
Iowa Code section 903A.2 states in part:
1. Each inmate committed to the custody of the director of the department of corrections is eligible to earn a reduction of sentence in the manner provided in this section....
a. (1) . . . An inmate of an institution under the control of the department of corrections who is serving a category "A" sentence is eligible for a reduction of sentence equal to one and two-tenths days for each day the inmate demonstrates good conduct and satisfactorily participates in any program or placement status identified by the director to earn the reduction. The programs include but are not limited to the following:
(a) Employment in the institution.
(b) Iowa state industries.
(c) An employment program established by the director.
(d) A treatment program established by the director.
(e) An inmate educational program approved by the director.
....
2. Earned time accrued pursuant to this section may be forfeited in the manner prescribed in section 903A.3.
3. Time served in a jail, municipal holding facility, or another facility prior to actual placement in an institution under the control of the department of corrections and credited against the sentence by the court shall accrue for the purpose of reduction of sentence under this section. Time which elapses during an escape shall not accrue for purposes of reduction of sentence under this section.
4. Time which elapses between the date on which a person is incarcerated, based upon a determination of the board of parole that a violation of parole has occurred, and the date on which the violation of parole was committed shall not accrue for purposes of reduction of sentence under this section.(Emphasis added.)
Reasby points to subsection (3), arguing Bridges is "another facility" where he served time before being placed at an institution under the control of the DOC so-according to him-he is entitled to credit for those days. He relies on Hensley in making this argument, asserting that because the supreme court determined Bridges qualified as a "community correctional residential treatment facility" for the purposes of section 907.3(3) (the probation credit statute), Bridges must be "another facility" under section 903A.2(3) (the earned-time statute). We disagree.
By its terms, section 903A.2 "limits eligibility for earned time to 'inmates committed to the custody of the director of the department of corrections.'" Allensworth, 823 N.W.2d at 415 (quoting Iowa Code § 903A.2(1)). And Reasby was neither an inmate nor committed to the custody of the DOC while he was on probation and spending time at Bridges. In Allensworth, our supreme court affirmed the district court ruling that the defendant was not entitled to earned-time credit for the time he spent on supervised probation. Id. at 412. And in doing so, it made several strong statements that directly cut against the argument Reasby makes, including that the "unambiguous language of the earned-time statute . . . limits accrual of earned-time credit to inmates who are incarcerated" and, "If the legislature had intended earned time to accrue while the offender is on probation, it would have said so." Id. at 412, 415.
Reasby argues his case is different than Allensworth because the probation time he argues is eligible for earned-time credit was spent in a jail-like facility (Bridges) while the defendant in Allensworth was on street probation. See id. at 416 (mentioning the defendant's "supervised street probation"). We recognize the factual differences, but it does not change our understanding of the statute at issue. We read subsections (1) and (3) of section 903A.2 in conjunction and conclude that a defendant must have already been committed to the custody of the director of the DOC to be eligible for earned-time credit for "[t]ime served in a jail, municipal holding facility, or another facility prior to actual placement" in a DOC institution. And this interpretation is supported by the "purpose of earned-time credit," which "is to encourage prisoners to follow prison rules and participate in rehabilitative programs." Allensworth, 823 N.W.2d at 414 (citation omitted); see also Sellers v. Stewart, 827 N.W.2d 128, 148 (Iowa 2016) (providing that when interpreting statutes, "[w]e seek to advance, rather than defeat, the purposes of the statute").
Reasby was not entitled to earned-time credit for the 206 days he spent in Bridges before his probation was revoked; we affirm the district court's denial of his motion and annul the writ.
WRIT ANNULLED.
[*]Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2024).