Missouri Supreme Court Affirms Denial of Prisoner’s Gain Time

The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed, on December 24, 2013, the circuit court’s finding for the Missouri Department of Corrections’ (MDOC) motion for summary judgment denying appellant Andrew Farish’s action for more jail time credited than MDOC awarded to him. Farish, in separate incidents, committed a robbery in Wyandotte County, Kansas, on February 15, 2008, and a first degree robbery and armed criminal action in Jackson County, Missouri, four days later. He was arrested the following day back in Kansas, and Missouri issued an arrest warrant.

Farish began, on December 31, 2008, his sentence with the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC). On April 6, 2009, he was transferred to Missouri for action on his first degree robbery and armed criminal action charges. He was sentenced to eight years confinement with MDOC, concurrent with his Kansas sentence starting March 5, 2010, and was returned to KDOC two weeks later. He was granted parole on his Kansas sentence August 30, 2010, and returned to Missouri on October 20, 2010, to complete his sentence. The MDOC assessed 406 days jail credit to be applied to appellant’s Missouri sentence, covering the time after his Kansas sentence was imposed that he spent in Jackson County, Missouri jail.

Farish filed for jail credit for the time beginning with his arrest in February 2008, and ending with his return to Missouri in October 2010. He based his argument on §§558.031.1.(1)-(3) RSMo (2000), claiming that the trial court erred in not recognizing the exception in subdivision (2) of the rule which embraces his circumstances. Appellant also claimed that Kansas’ sentencing court awarded the jail credit he sought.

The Missouri Supreme Court construed the meaning of the wording of subsection (2), which it termed an exception to the exception, to render the appellant’s argument invalid in that it limited the purview of the subsection to include exclusively “time in custody outside the state of Missouri unilaterally caused by the action of the state of Missouri.” The court furthermore held appellant’s second issue as invalid in that a sentencing court has no authority to award jail time credit, and if arguendo it did, “[t]ime in custody is not ‘related to’ an offense if the prisoner would have been in custody regardless of the offense.” Section 558.031.1 RSMo. See: Farish v. Mo. Dep't of Corr., 416 S.W.3d 793 (Mo. 2013).

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