Families of Prisoners Support Group
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This is mainly for the lawyers in this group, but if anybody else can give me accurate information, I'd appreciate it. My husband was sentenced to the Arkansas dept. of corrections to a ten year sentence for poss/dist/viewing sexually explicit material depicting a child. 1 count. C felony, level 4 seriousness ranking. No priors. His PE/TE date is showing to be March 6, 2019. That is 3 years from now; 1/3 of his full sentence. AR Sentencing guidelines show that for this type of felony, they must serve 1/3 of the time before PE date. Now, assuming that he's a model prisoner and get's 20 days to 30 days good time credit towards that sentence, could his PE eligibility date change say get bumped earlier because of good behavior? Or, will he have to wait until his March 2019 PE date? When he took the plea agreement, his public defender lawyer told him that with a 10 year sentence, he'd be eligible for parole with good time by July-November of 2017. Were we misinformed or just misunderstood? The good time structure is as follows: Level 1 30 days good time credit for each month; level 2 20 days good time for each month; level 3 10 days good time credit for each month; level 4, no good time credit. All ADC inmates start out at level 2. Ark. dept of corrections determines the parole eligibility date.
It is confusing, but I understand what you are talking about. Arkansas' good time credits are administered much in the same manner as Oklahoma's and several other states.
In Arkansas, a level 1 inmate with good behavior and no misconducts receives 30 days good time credit for each month served, which means for every 30 days he actually serves 60 days is deducted from his sentence. So, in theory, if he could have been placed on level 1 in the very beginning of his sentence, he could discharge his 10 year sentence in five years, provided he exhibited good behavior with no misconducts. I know this because in Oklahoma, I received 44 days good time credit for every 30 days served, which was 74 days deducted from my sentence every month. Thus, I was able to completely discharge my 20 year sentence in eight years.
What you are asking is this----Does the parole eligibility date move up when the good time credits are calculated, which makes the actual sentence shorter?
Yes, his parole date should move up IF Arkansas does not have a special provision---an exception--- for the parole eligibility date of inmates convicted of a sex crime.
Check out Debra Joann Cheatham Reece's response in the following discussion. She is correct in her response------
http://tinyurl.com/zuzp84u
The parole eligibility date given an inmate in the beginning changes over time. As I said, it will move up as that inmate receives good time credits and shortens his sentence.
This will be true unless the Arkansas statutes says that a sex offender must serve a fixed percentage of his sentence, such as 85%. That does not appear to be the case since he is eligible for good time credits.
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