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RALEIGH Gov. Bev Perdue's third take: Prison officials never doled out credits for good behavior to those sentenced to life in the 1970s.
It's the latest position Perdue's administration has taken on the question of freedom for dozens of inmates convicted of murder, rape and robbery more than three decades ago. The inmates have argued in court that state law and prison policies entitle them to immediate release.
Perdue said Thursday that she and prison officials will be happy to release them in 2054, when the youngest and healthiest among them will be approaching 100.
Six weeks ago, the state's highest court affirmed that a law in place in the 1970s defined a life sentence as 80 years, but only for lifers sentenced between 1974 and 1978. The inmates argued that policies in place then entitled them to credit for good behavior and meant that they should go free.
The administration at first appeared to agree. Within days, prison officials made a list of inmates in that category and began preparing for their release. They called the inmates' mothers and fathers; they warned the families of the victims.
Perdue then said she would not stand for it. Days before prison officials promised to turn the first batch of inmates loose, Perdue forbade their release, saying prison officials never had the authority to award the credits.
On Thursday, she offered a third stance: The Department of Correction had never awarded those credits and never meant to.
Correction Secretary Alvin Keller said in a memo this week to prison staff that since the 1950s, those sentenced to life in prison were never awarded "good time" credits, which amount to a day off for a day of good behavior. Those awards only helped lifers get promoted to lower-security prisons or made them eligible for parole more quickly, Keller said. He said he had never used the credits to reduce a prison term.
But in fact, the issue never arose before the court's decision six weeks ago.
Advocates for the prisoners met the governor's newest tack with exasperation.
"This is simply an extension of the state's political efforts to buttress the governor's sagging poll ratings by defying the rule of law," said Staples Hughes, the state appellate defender, whose office has represented some of the inmates. "We don't believe they will be able to substantiate their opinion in a court of law before impartial judges."
Republican legislators were also befuddled.
"This entire controversy was caused by the governor's own department misunderstanding an appellate court decision, miscalculating sentence credits, and misinforming victims and the public," House Minority Leader Paul Stam of Wake County said in a statement Thursday. "Now, she claims credit for protecting us from her own error. This is really appalling and inexplicable."
Ultimately, the courts will be asked to settle the issue of credits. In the coming months, superior court judges across the state will be forced to settle the matter in cases filed by inmates sentenced to life in the 1970s.
Hughes said he has great faith that judges will free the inmates.
"Every lawyer reading this can come but to one conclusion: The dates that DOC calculated immediately after (the court's ruling) are more or less accurate and this is nothing more than a continued defiance of the law," he said.
It will likely not matter how prison officials applied their policies but what the policies actually said.
A 1983 Correction Department policy still in effect says prison officials will award people convicted of crimes committed before 1981 "regular sentence good time credit at the rate of one day deducted from the inmate's prison or jail term for each day he spends in custody without a major infraction of prison conduct rules."
"I don't think DOC could retroactively change the policy," said Jamie Markum, a professor at the UNC School of Government who specializes in prison issues.
A 1981 law forbade those sentenced to the highest level felonies from receiving good time credits. The law, however, put the power to award credits to those convicted before that year in the hands of the correction secretary.
Keller said in his internal memorandum that he saw no reason to treat the 1970s lifers differently than others sentenced to life.
"I cannot see any meaningful difference ... in that their crimes are similarly heinous," Keller said.
