The Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned the revocation of a Crawford County man's probation, saying it was an "illegal sentence."
Jamie Reyes received two six-year prison sentences for two failure-to-appear convictions in January 2013, to run concurrently, along with a decade-long probation sentence for a second-degree sexual assault conviction. The probation period was to begin after his release from prison. While in prison, Reyes was to complete the Reeducation of Sexual Victimization Program, a treatment program for sexual offenders.
On Nov. 23, 2013, Reyes was released from prison early via the prison-overcrowding Emergency Powers Act 418 of 1987. He had not started the treatment program at the time of release.
In December 2013, prosecutors moved to revoke Reyes' probation because they said he did not complete the program, but Reyes contended that the court erred in agreeing to the revocation.
At the probation revocation hearing, Reyes and Robert Parker, the mental health administrator for the Arkansas Department of Correction, said that Reyes was referred to the sexual-offender program during the prison intake process. The referral automatically placed him on the waiting list, which at the time had 1,500 inmates, Parker testified.
Parker added that it would be difficult for an inmate with a six-year sentence to get into the program before he was released from prison.
Documents show that Reyes sent the program administrator a note, received on June 4, 2013, saying he needed to be enrolled "ASAP." The program administrator replied, telling Reyes to "wait his turn" and asked for the inmate's parole eligibility date.
Reyes wrote again on June 16, listing his parole eligibility date and repeating his need to complete the program. On July 8, Reyes was told that he was on the waiting list, which was ranked by parole eligibility dates and "that he did not need to do anything more," court documents show.
Prosecutors argued that Reyes could have stayed in prison and completed the program, but he chose not to.
"The state did not introduce any testimony or other evidence to support this argument regarding an inmate's options when ordered released under this Act," appellate Judge Rita W. Gruber wrote in an opinion released Wednesday.
"The [trial] court found that a condition of the appellant's [probation] was completion of the [program], that appellant failed to complete the [program], and that the only way to complete the [program] was to be incarcerated; therefore, the court revoked his [probation] and sentenced him to eight years in the ADC plus twelve years' [probation]--including a condition that he complete the [program]--in order to allow him time in the ADC to complete the [program]."
Gruber wrote that Reyes did all he could to complete the program, so there was no basis for the revocation. The Appeals Court on Wednesday reversed the revocation of probation and reinstated Reyes' original sentences.
NW News on 02/05/2015