South Carolina Supreme Court Grants Prisoner Credit for Time Served Awaiting Revocation of Supervised Release
On January 9, 2024, the Supreme Court of South Carolina held that a prisoner detained while awaiting proceedings to revoke community supervision must receive credit for time served prior to the revocation becoming final.
Stacardo Grissett was released from prison, where he had been held for an unspecified offense, and transferred to the Community Supervision Program (CSP), a form of post-release supervision. Prisoners not subject to parole are eligible for CSP after serving 85 percent of their original sentence, perS.C. Code Ann. § 24-13-150 (Supp. 2023). But Grissett violated the terms of CSP and was detained for approximately six months awaiting a revocation hearing. When sentenced for the violation, he was denied credit for time served and appealed.
The Court granted certiorari review, finding “there is a lack of uniformity among our circuit judges” in giving “credit for the time served between the date of arrest for alleged CSP violations and the CSP revocation hearing.” To resolve, the Court turned to the plain language of S.C. Code Ann. § 24-21-560(C), which provides: “A prisoner who is incarcerated for revocation of the community supervision program is not eligible to earn any type of credits which would reduce the sentence for violation of the community supervision program.”
The Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services (DPPPS) argued that the ban on “any type of credits” meant that prisoners are not entitled to credit for time served prior to revocation. But the Court rejected this argument, holding that the term “credits” refers to good-time or earned-work credits, but not credit for the actual number of days served in custody prior to a violation hearing. “Time-served credits do not ‘reduce’ a CSP revocation sentence,” the Court declared; “rather, they merely affect the date on which that sentence begins to run.”
Accordingly, the Court held that a state circuit court judge must “credit a CSP inmate who violates a term of his or her community supervision with the length of any time served while in jail on an alleged CSP violation awaiting adjudication of the CSP violation charge.” Grissett was ably represented by Appellate Defender Lara Mary Caudy of Columbia. See: State v. Grissett, 898 S.E.2d 139 (S.C. 2024).
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