Incarceration For a Supervised Release Violation Cannot Extend Into the Conditional Release Term

State of Minnesota, ex rel Billy Peterson v. Joan Fabian, Commissioner of Corrections, Minn.Ct.App., 6/29/2010.  This is an Opinion about supervised release and conditional release.  I have a headache already, as will you soon enough.

Let’s review.  A criminal sentence consists of a term of imprisonment equal to a minimum term of two thirds of the sentence that the court pronounced, and a maximum term of supervised release, equal to one third of that pronounced sentence.  For certain specified crimes, however, the sentence includes an additional period of conditional release. 

Here’s what happened.  On August 7, 2008, the trial court sentenced Mr. Peterson to a year and a day for his conviction of failure to register as a predatory offender.  Mr. Peterson should have completed service of his sentence on February 3, 2009.  In fact, DOC placed him on supervised release ahead of schedule, on October 6, 2008, but then revoked that supervised release on December 8, 2008.  DOC imposed 250 additional days of incarceration, which extended into the commencement of the term of conditional release.  Mr. Peterson filed a writ of habeas corpus, complaining that DOC could not hold him beyond his expiration date based solely on a supervised release violation.

The appellate court agrees, relying upon the statute, Minn.Stat. 243.166, subd. 5a, which directs that DOC is to place an offender on conditional release after completion of the sentence imposed.  That sentence includes imprisonment and supervised release.  The conditional release term cannot start until after imprisonment and supervised released are completed.  While Mr. Peterson could be sanctioned for violating his supervised release, that sanction cannot “bleed” into the conditional release term.

In reaching this result, the appellate court has to dance around other opinions that distinguish between supervised and conditional release.  State v. Enger, 539 N.W.2d 259 (Minn. App. 1995), review denied (Minn. Dec. 20, 1995), and State v. Koperski, 611 N.W.2d 569 (Minn. App. 2000).  These opinions rather loosely declare that the two release periods must run concurrently.  The appellate court posits that those cases have to do with custody calculations, and not when, exactly, the conditional release term begins.