Opinion
No. 2 CA-HC 2014-0002
10-30-2014
JIMMY LEE WILLIAMS, Petitioner/Appellant, v. CHARLES L. RYAN, DIRECTOR, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent/Appellee.
COUNSEL Jimmy Lee Williams, Florence In Propria Persona Thomas C. Horne, Arizona Attorney General By Kelly Gillilan-Gibson, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix Counsel for Respondent/Appellee
THIS DECISION DOES NOT CREATE LEGAL PRECEDENT AND MAY NOT BE CITED EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY APPLICABLE RULES.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
See Ariz. R. Sup. Ct. 111(c); Ariz. R. Civ. App. P. 28(c).
Appeal from the Superior Court in Pinal County
No. S1100CV201303065
The Honorable Karen J. Stillwell, Judge Pro Tempore
AFFIRMED
COUNSEL Jimmy Lee Williams, Florence
In Propria Persona
Thomas C. Horne, Arizona Attorney General
By Kelly Gillilan-Gibson, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix
Counsel for Respondent/Appellee
MEMORANDUM DECISION
Judge Howard authored the decision of the Court, in which Presiding Judge Kelly and Judge Vásquez concurred. HOWARD, Judge:
¶1 In this appeal from the denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief, Jimmy Williams requests his immediate release, asserting his commuted sentence is excessive. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
¶2 Following a jury trial in 1993, Williams was convicted of three counts each of aggravated assault and endangerment, all dangerous nature offenses. After finding he had two prior convictions and had committed the offenses while on parole, the trial court sentenced Williams to six concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole until he had served twenty-five years. Pursuant to the Disproportionality Review Act (the "DRA"), the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency (the "Board") recommended in 1995 that Williams's sentences for endangerment be commuted to 5.5 years each and his sentences for aggravated assault be commuted to twenty-six years each. See 1994 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 365, § 1. Although the governor denied the Board's recommendation, it became effective automatically pursuant to McDonald v. Thomas, 202 Ariz. 35, ¶¶ 35-36, 40 P.3d 819, 830 (2002).
The Disproportionality Review Act was intended to remedy the problem that "[t]hose convicted of violating certain laws before 1994 were treated much more harshly than those convicted of the same violations after the effective date of [extensive] amendments" to Arizona's sentencing laws. McDonald v. Thomas, 202 Ariz. 35, ¶ 3, 40 P.3d 819, 822 (2002). "The Act went into effect in July 1994 and was repealed on June 30, 1996." Id.
¶3 Williams filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2002, arguing in part that he had a constitutionally protected liberty interest in the commutation process, which as applied here, violated his equal protection rights. Noting that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus should have been brought as a special action proceeding, we nonetheless affirmed the trial court's denial of relief on appeal. Williams v. Fizer, No. 2 CA-CV 2003-0034, ¶ 2 (memorandum decision filed Aug. 19, 2003).
¶4 Williams filed a second petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2007, arguing the commuted sentence was excessive and violated his due process and equal protection rights. The trial court denied Williams's second petition, and pursuant to his request, we dismissed his appeal from that ruling. Ariz. Dep't of Corr. v. Williams, No. 2 CA-HC 2008-0001 (order filed Sept. 29, 2008).
In its ruling denying Williams's second habeas corpus petition, the trial court found:
The Legislature in creating the Disproportionality Review process left to the Board of Executive Clemency to determine whether or not to commute inmates' sentences and determined that those decisions would not be appealable. "An inmate may not appeal [a] decision by the Board of Executive Clemency pursuant to this section [1994 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 365, § 1(H)]." A petitioner may be dissatisfied with the law established and granted to the Board the power to commute sentences. Dissatisfaction cannot and does not [permit] this Court to ignore the plain law that was written.
¶5 In 2013, Williams filed a third petition for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing his commuted sentence for aggravated assault violated several of his constitutional rights and was excessive because it did not comply with the 1994 sentencing statute. He also asserted because he had been unable to "argue" a claim based on Galaz v. Stewart, 207 Ariz. 452, 88 P.3d 166 (2004), he had been denied meaningful access to the courts.
Williams argued that because our supreme court stated in Galaz that the DRA was enacted "to help equalize sentences imposed . . . for similar crimes committed before and after 1994," the Board should have imposed a maximum sentence of fifteen years for the aggravated assault offenses, the same sentence an individual who committed a similar offense after 1994 would have received. Galaz, 207 Ariz. 452, ¶ 10, 88 P.3d at 168.
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¶6 The trial court denied the petition, noting its concern "that this is now the third [p]etition filed regarding [Williams's] commuted sentence," and although "each [p]etition alleged a unique nuance or issue," each also "alleged that the commuted sentence was excessive." The court also concluded Williams had "not been deprived of meaningful access to the courts for his purported inability" to make an argument based on Galaz, and, relying on Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 351 (1996), the court noted Galaz "did not substantially change" Williams's arguments nor had he shown "'actual injury.'" Agreeing with the reasoning in the 2008 ruling denying Williams's second petition, the court concluded "commutation decisions are not appealable." The court further found, "because the relief sought by [Williams] cannot be granted, the Court will not make a specific ruling whether [Williams's] claims are barred by res judicata, collateral estoppel[] or the doctrine of laches." Williams appeals from that order.
¶7 In several different arguments, Williams essentially contends he is entitled to bring this appeal asserting, once again, that his commuted sentence is excessive, his constitutional rights were violated, and he is entitled to immediate release. "The decision whether to issue a writ of habeas corpus is entrusted to the sound discretion of the trial court, and we will not disturb the trial court's decision unless we see an abuse of that discretion." State v. Cowles, 207 Ariz. 8, ¶ 3, 82 P.3d 369, 370 (App. 2004).
¶8 "Unlike probation, pardon and commutation decisions have not traditionally been the business of courts; as such, they are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review." Conn. Bd. of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 464 (1981). Asserting he agrees with this principle, Williams nonetheless maintains that by having created a process for commutation, "the state has created a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause entitling him to a recommendation and commuted sentence consistent with the substantive predicates," and argues his petition presents the question "whether his commuted sentence under the DRA should be interpreted as having changed his life sentence to a term of years authorized under the 1994 version of A.R.S. § 13-604.02(A); and whether the DRA created a liberty interest entitling him to due process protections."
¶9 Based on the clear language in the DRA, however, decisions of the Board are not appealable: "An inmate may not appeal a decision by the board of executive clemency pursuant to this section." 1994 Ariz. Sess. Laws, ch. 365, § 1(H). Williams contends this prohibition against appeals does not apply here because his appeal is a "collateral attack" challenging his unlawful detention under the commuted sentence rather than directly challenging the sentence. By prohibiting appeals from "a decision by the board of executive clemency pursuant to this section," id., the legislature imposed a broad and apparently all-encompassing prohibition against appeals from any decision made by the Board pursuant to the DRA. Calling his petition something other than an appeal from the Board's decision does not make it so, as evidenced by Williams's repeated arguments on appeal challenging his commuted sentence. Accordingly, the trial court correctly denied Williams's petition.
¶10 Finally, although we do not address Williams's arguments regarding purported constitutional violations, arguments he has raised in various forms in prior petitions, we note that we concluded in our memorandum decision on appeal that the procedure under the DRA does not create a protected liberty interest in the Board's commutation recommendation and that Williams was not entitled to equal protection rights based on the commutation decision. Williams, No. 2 CA-CV 2003-0034, ¶¶ 7, 9-10; see also Wigglesworth v. Mauldin, 195 Ariz. 432, ¶¶ 21, 24, 990 P.2d 26, 32-33 (App. 1999). We similarly do not address Williams's assertion, raised in his petition below, that he was unable to raise the argument now before us because Galaz was not previously "available" to him. Not only has Williams failed to establish on appeal that the trial court erred by denying this claim on the merits, but more importantly, the court correctly found he was not entitled to appeal from his commuted sentence in any event.
¶11 Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's judgment denying Williams's petition.