Opinion
C.A. No. 96M-03-065-RRC.
Submitted: December 17, 1999.
Decided: March 14, 2000.
Upon Respondents' Motion to Modify Order. GRANTED.
ORDER
This 14th day of March, 2000, upon Respondents' Motion to Modify Order, it appears to this Court that:
1. Board of Corrections, et al. (Respondents) have filed this Motion to Modify Order pursuant to Super. Ct. Civ. R. 60(b)(5) and (6), to reopen this Court's order of February 27, 1998 for consideration of recent changes to the language of 11 Del. C. § 6535 with respect to the Department of Correction's statutory duty to provide disciplinary rules to inmates.
2. Frank Ross and Robeert Gattis (Petitioners) are incarcerated at the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna. They had filed an application for a Writ of Mandamus and Motion for Subpoena Duces Tecum in 1996 to secure documents relating to the disciplinary rules of the Department of Correction pursuant to prior 11 Del. C. . § 6535. On December 9, 1996 this Court found that Respondents had complied with the requirements of § 6535 because Petitioners had access to the Department rules and regulation. The Court found that Petitioners had been permitted to review such materials in the inmate law library and in their cells.
Ross v. Department of Correction, Del. Super., C.A. No. 96M-03-065, Del Pesco, J. (Dec. 9, 1996) (ORDER), rev'd, Del. Supr., 697 A.2d 377 (1997) (per curiam).
3. Petitioners appealed to the Supreme Court which held on July 18, 1997 that § 6535 (before its 1998 amendment) required the Department of Correction to give inmates individual copies of the disciplinary rules, and that the Department's practice of making the rules available for review did not satisfy the statutory mandate. The case was remanded to the Superior Court where on February 27, 1998, this Court issued a Writ of Mandamus directing the Department of Correction to comply with 11 Del. C. § 6535 and to provide all inmates under Department of Correction supervision with copies of the disciplinary rules.
Id.
Subsequent to the February 27, 1998 order of this Court, the General Assembly amended 11 Del. C. § 6535, effective June 25, 1998. The legislature rewrote the second sentence of § 6535 and changed it from "[a] copy of such [disciplinary] rules shall be provided to each inmate" to "[p]risoners of the Department shall have access to those portions of the disciplinary rules that apply to them, at places and times deemed reasonable and appropriate by the Commissioner."
4. Respondents now ask this Court to "modify the order to provide inmates with access to applicable disciplinary rules at places and times deemed reasonable by the Commissioner." Respondents represent that the Department of Correction is drafting a policy to address inmate access to the disciplinary rules pursuant to § 6535, and that work is being done to implement a specific plan to provide inmates with full and appropriate access to the rules. Respondents ask this Court to modify the February 27, 1998 order to reflect the changes made to 11 Del. C. § 6535 by the General Assembly.
Respondent's Motion to Modify at ¶ 7.
5. Petitioners' response asserts due process violations and a violation of a constitutional right to possess the disciplinary rules. Specifically, Petitioners argue that "respondents did not challenge [the Court's] finding of facts and conclusions of law, and thus they became the law of the case when the appeal period expired and the order took effect." Petitioners assert that this is not an issue affecting all inmates and state "two copies of the rules could scarcely break the state treasury or prejudice the respondents." Petitioners further contend that statutory amendments are not retroactive and that "[i]f the new law is applied to the petitioners, they will lose their statutory (and also, constitutional property) rights(s) to possess copy of the rules, as well as the due process right to due notice of said rules." Petitioners ask this Court to deny Respondents' motion to modify the order and continue to require the Department of Correction to provide Petitioners with copies of the disciplinary rules.
Petitioners' Response to Motion to Modify Judgment at ¶ 2.
Id. at ¶ 6.
Id. at ¶ 8.
6. However, the Court need not reach the various arguments raised by Petitioners. Super. Ct. Civ. R. 60(b) provides relief from a final judgment where "(5) . . . a prior judgment upon which it is based has been reversed or otherwise vacated, or it is no longer equitable that the judgment have prospective application; or (6) any other reason justifying relief from the operation of judgment."
See Smith v. Smith, Fam. Ct., 458 A.2d 711 (1983).
7. This Court's prior order was based upon the statutory interpretation of then-existing 11 Del. C. § 6535 requiring the Department of Correction to provide individual copies of the disciplinary rules to inmates. The legislature removed that sentence from § 6535 and replaced it with language requiring the Commissioner to determine the method of distribution. The Department of Correction is apparently drafting a policy to implement a specific plan to give inmates full access to the disciplinary rules. The legislature changed a specific part of § 6535 to allow the Department of Correction to determine the place and time reasonable and appropriate for prisoners to have access to the rules. Petitioners will have access to the appropriate disciplinary rules in accordance with amended 11 Del. C. § 6535.
This Court hereby modifies the order of February 27, 1998 and now orders that "[p]risoners of the Department [of Correction] shall have access to those portions of the disciplinary rules that apply to them, at places and timed deemed reasonable by the Commissioner."
8. For the reasons stated above, Respondents' Motion to Modify Order is GRANTED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.