Do Prison Overcrowding Statutes Which Effectively Make the Petitioners Ineligible to Receive Any Credits Constitute An Ex-Post-Facto Violation ?

In Gomez v. Singletary, 733 So. 2d 499 (Fla. 1998) the Court addressed gain time in the context of prisoners who were never awarded certain types of credits but should have been awarded such credits. The court held that the subsequent revisions in the prison overcrowding statutes which effectively made the petitioners ineligible to receive any credits constituted an ex-post-facto violation. Id. The decision also set forth a set of charts which provided for the number of credits to be awarded for each inmate according to that inmate's "Offender Group." The "Offender Groups" were a number of categories of inmates who had been arranged into groups by offense type and date. In a footnote to Gomez the Court noted that the amount of overcrowding credits to be awarded for each inmate in the respective groups would generally be determined by the charts set forth in the appendixes of the decision. See Gomez, 733 So. 2d at 508 n.14. The court indicated, however, that "inmates not parties to this action are generally bound by these appendixes but retain their right to challenge the applicability of the charts to their particular situations." Id.