CopyCited 8 times | Published | Supreme Court of Florida | 1997 WL 589308
...He received fifteen days' disciplinary confinement, received ninety days' loss of earned gain-time, and was rendered ineligible to earn incentive gain-time for a period of six months after receiving the disciplinary report. The penalty assessed was based on section 944.281, Florida Statutes (1995), which provides that "[t]he department may declare that a prisoner" who violates a law or rule "shall not be eligible to earn incentive gain-time for up to 6 months," and rule 33-11.0065(5)(a)1.-5. of the Florida Administrative Code, which implements section 944.281. Britt has filed this petition for writ of mandamus seeking to prevent the governor and the department from applying section 944.281 and rule 33-11.0065 to him based on an asserted ex post facto violation because the statute and rule were not in effect at the time he committed his offense....
...ence or sentences under which he is imprisoned may be declared forfeited because of the seriousness of a single instance of misconduct or because of the seriousness of an accumulation of instances of misconduct. (Emphasis added.) On October 1, 1995, section 944.281 was adopted, effective January 1,1996....
..., shall not be eligible to earn incentive gain-time for up to 6 months following the month in which the violation occurred. The department shall adopt rules to administer the provisions of this section. (Emphasis added.) Pursuant to the directive in section 944.281, the department adopted rule 33.110065(5)(a)1.-5....
...time of sentencing. Rather, the department argues that disciplinary confinement and forfeiture of gain-time or the right to earn gain-time are merely management tools used to control and modify improper behavior. Further, the department argues that section
944.281 is merely a further refinement of section
944.28....
...ng before its enactment'and it `must disadvantage the offender affected by it' by altering the definition of criminal conduct or increasing the punishment for the crime." ___ U.S. at ___,
117 S.Ct. at 896 (citations omitted). The statute at issue, section
944.281, changes the method of determining what punishment is to be imposed for a disciplinary infraction during an inmate's confinement by allowing the department to eliminate an inmate's opportunity *1048 to earn incentive gain-time for up to six months following the offense....
...hieve the desired corrective results. (Emphasis added.) Because Britt's disciplinary infraction dealt with drug use, under the old rule, he would not have lost eligibility to earn gain-time. Under rule 33-11.0065(5)(a), which was enacted pursuant to section 944.281, he became ineligible to earn gaintime for six months for that same offense....
...gthen his sentence by increasing the punishment to be applied for disciplinary actions. Accordingly, for the reasons expressed, we grant Britt's petition, holding that, upon this opinion's becoming final, the department shall be barred from applying section 944.281 and its corresponding administrative rule to Britt and any other inmate convicted of an offense committed prior to October 1, 1995, the date the statute became law....
...ated the same as incentive gain time for purposes of ex post facto analysis. Thus, the United States Supreme Court held that its prior decision in Weaver v. Graham,
450 U.S. 24,
101 S.Ct. 960,
67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981), applied to all types of gain time. Section
944.281, Florida Statutes (1995), and Department Rule 33.110055(5)(a)1.-5., under consideration in this case, are entirely different. They provide for the cancellation of gain time only if prisoners commit subsequent acts of misconduct. Unlike the circumstances in Lynce, section
944.281 and its corresponding rule do not take away anything to which the prisoner was entitled *1049 when his crime was committed or when he was sentenced to jail....
