Supreme Court says probation was revoked too late

In a split decision, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled on June 30 that a man’s probation shouldn’t have been revoked because he earned enough compliance credits.

The court ordered that Travis Jonas be released from the Moberly Correctional Center, where he was serving a seven-year sentence stemming from his conviction in 2012 on a charge of identity theft. A St. Charles County judge had suspended the sentence and put Jonas on five years’ probation.

Jonas successfully repaid his court-ordered restitution, but he also failed to complete a treatment program and was arrested for another alleged incidence of identity theft. His probation was suspended in 2016, and he was sentenced to his original prison term the following year.

Jonas filed a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the court lacked authority to revoke probation because he had accrued enough credits through good behavior that, by the time of his revocation hearing, his probation already had ended and the judge had no authority to revoke it. A four-judge majority of the Supreme Court agreed.

Under Missouri’s probation laws, defendants receive a 30-day reduction in the period of their probation for each full calendar month of compliance with the terms of their supervision. Counting such “earned compliance credits,” or ECCs, Jonas’ term of probation would have expired in April 2015.

His arrest on the new charge of identity theft occurred in December of that year, about a month after he had paid the last of his restitution. The court previously has held that credits can’t be awarded if restitution is still outstanding.

Among the state’s arguments was that the statute requires the court and the prosecutor to receive notice “no less than sixty days before the date of final discharge,” which was never done. But Judge Mary R. Russell, writing for the majority, said that was no reason to extend Jonas’ probation.

“If the division of probation and parole overlooks its duty to provide notice, final discharge cannot be delayed, as this notice is not a condition precedent to a probationer’s discharge,” she wrote.

The majority also held that a habeas writ was an acceptable way for Jonas to have challenged his unlawfully imposed sentence. The Court of Appeals Western District issued similar opinions in 2018 and 2019.

Judge W. Brent Powell, however, argued in a dissent that Jonas should have brought up his credits at the hearing. By failing to do so, the argument was procedurally defaulted, Powell wrote.

Powell, joined by Judges Zel M. Fischer and Paul C. Wilson, said the majority’s ruling makes judges’ jobs even more difficult by burdening them with “complex” ECC calculations rather than leaving the job to the probation office that is supposed to award the credits.

“The practical effect of this ruling will require circuit courts to calculate and determine whether sufficient ECCs have accrued to warrant discharging a probationer before every probation revocation hearing, even if the probationer does not raise or argue the issue,” Powell wrote.

In a footnote, Russell responded that calculating the credits “merely requires an examination of a calendar, reference to entries on the court’s docket, and subtraction.”

The case is State ex rel. Jonas v. Minor, SC97674.