As we explained in our case summary, the question in this case was whether the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) was authorized to house a sex offender in a residential treatment facility (RTF) during his entire term of postrelease supervision (PRS). In a 4-3 decision, the Court (Stein, J.) held that DOCCS was authorized to do that.
This case involved two provisions granting DOCCS authority to place inmates in an RTF. Penal Law § 70.45(3) authorized DOCCS to require an inmate, who will be released onto PRS, to go to an RTF to participate in programming for “a period not exceeding six months immediately following release from the underlying term of imprisonment.” In turn, Correction Law § 73(10) authorized DOCCS “to use any [RTF] as a residence for persons who are on community supervision.” The question was whether the general grant of authority in Correction Law § 73(10) was restricted by the six-month limitation from Penal Law § 70.45(3).
The majority held that DOCCS’s authority to house a inmate on PRS was not limited to six-months. In the majority’s view, there was no conflict between Correction Law § 73(10) and Penal Law § 70.45(3) because those provisions governed different kinds of inmates. The Penal Law provision governed use of an RTF to house an inmate prior to their release into the community; the Correction Law provision governed use of an RTF to house an inmate who had already been “released” into the community but lacked a place to live. In the majority’s view, the key difference between the provisions that illustrated their different focus was programming: an inmate housed at an RTF under the Penal Law provision had to participate in programs, while an inmate housed under the Correction Law provision did not. (The majority, however, refused to address the argument that, in practice, there was no such distinction between the treatment of inmates housed at an RTF under the two provisions.)
Writing in dissent, Judge Fahey believed that the Penal Law’s specific grant of authority to house an inmate in an RTF for no more than six months, which was enacted in 1998, superseded the 1970s-era general grant of authority to use an RTF to house an inmate from the Correction Law. Confronting the majority’s distinction between inmates, the dissent found no evidence of a “systematic difference” between the treatment of inmates housed under the Correction Law provision and those housed under the Penal Law provision. As a consequence, the practical result of construing the general Correction Law provision as a “standalone authorization for confining individuals,” the dissent explained, would be to allow DOCCS to skirt the specific limitations imposed by the Penal Law.