Michael Lambert v. Wayne T. Salisbury, Jr.

Supreme Court

No. 2022-79-M.P.
(PM 21-2362)

(Concurrence begins on
Page 10)

Michael Lambert :

v. :

Wayne T. Salisbury, Jr. et al. :

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision
before publication in the Rhode Island Reporter. Readers
are requested to notify the Opinion Analyst, Supreme
Court of Rhode Island, 250 Benefit Street, Providence,
Rhode Island 02903, at Telephone (401) 222-3258 or
Email opinionanalyst@courts.ri.gov, of any
typographical or other formal errors in order that
corrections may be made before the opinion is published.
Supreme Court

No. 2022-79-M.P.
(PM 21-2362)

(Concurrence begins on
Page 10)

Michael Lambert :

v. :

Wayne T. Salisbury, Jr. et al.1 :

Present: Suttell, C.J., Goldberg, Robinson, Lynch Prata, and Long, JJ.

OPINION

Justice Robinson, for the Court. This case came before the Supreme

Court pursuant to a writ of certiorari filed by the state, seeking review of a

Superior Court decision that granted an application for postconviction relief that

had been filed by the applicant, Michael Lambert. The state contends before this

Court that the hearing justice erred in ordering the Parole Board to immediately

release Mr. Lambert on parole to the community as a consequence of the fact that

the hearing justice had determined that Mr. Lambert was eligible for parole as a

1
The petition in this action named as a defendant Patricia Coyne-Fague, in
her official capacity as the Director of the Rhode Island Department of
Corrections. However, Ms. Coyne-Fague has since been succeeded by Wayne T.
Salisbury, Jr., in his official capacity as the Director of the Rhode Island
Department of Corrections. See Super. R. Civ. P. 25(d).
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result of the aggregation of his life sentence with his consecutive sentence of ten

years.

For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm in part and quash in part

the judgment of the Superior Court, and we remand the case for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I

Facts and Travel

On March 3, 1995, a grand jury indicted Mr. Lambert on the charge of

first-degree murder. On January 23, 1996, Mr. Lambert was convicted by a jury of

second-degree murder and committing a crime of violence while armed. Later, on

April 10, 1996, Mr. Lambert was sentenced to life imprisonment on the murder

count, and he also received an additional ten-year sentence, to run consecutively,

on the count of committing a crime of violence while armed. This Court affirmed

Mr. Lambert’s convictions on December 22, 1997. State v. Lambert, 705 A.2d 957,

965 (R.I. 1997).

After having denied Mr. Lambert parole in 2009, 2015, and 2018, the Parole

Board granted Mr. Lambert parole in December of 2019. The Parole Board voted

to parole him effective December of 2020, with a review date in September of

2020. In June of 2020, the Parole Board reviewed Mr. Lambert’s case in order to

identify special conditions for his parole and also to review his parole plan. At that

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review, the Parole Board amended its prior decision and voted to change his parole

date to September of 2020 “in light of the current pandemic” and “bed availability”

at the Open Doors/Nine Yards Program. Subsequently, on September 1, 2020, Mr.

Lambert was informed that further review of the records of the Rhode Island

Department of Corrections (RIDOC) revealed that he should have been paroled to

his consecutive sentence. Mr. Lambert was seen again by the Parole Board on

October 14, 2020; and, at that time, the Parole Board voted unanimously to modify

his parole release date so that the parole permit would correctly reflect that Mr.

Lambert’s life sentence had been served as of December 11, 2019, at which time

he began serving his consecutive sentence. (Simply put, this meant that Mr.

Lambert began serving his consecutive ten-year sentence on that date.) The Parole

Board minutes from October 14, 2020 reflect that the Parole Board was unaware of

Mr. Lambert’s ten-year consecutive sentence at the time he was granted parole in

2019. The record also contains two parole permits introduced by Mr. Lambert.

The later in time of those two permits is the operative one for the purposes of this

case; it indicates that Mr. Lambert was paroled to his consecutive sentence with a

retroactive date of December 11, 2019.2

2
Viewing the situation before us in practical terms, we are not aware of any
reason why the Parole Board would have been unable to amend a previously issued
parole permit and to correct an error contained therein.
-3-
On April 5, 2021, Mr. Lambert filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas

corpus. In his petition, Mr. Lambert contended that “RIDOC decided to alter its

method of calculating parole eligibility dates for inmates serving more than one

sentence, apparently to ‘disaggregate’ sentences * * *.” Among other contentions,

he claimed that, as a result of this practice, he was being unlawfully detained

beyond the terms of his sentence; and he therefore requested “immediate release

from custody, pursuant to the recommendation, and subject to the supervision, of

the Rhode Island Parole Board.”

The remaining travel of Mr. Lambert’s case indicates that his habeas action

was subsequently treated as an application for postconviction relief. Upon

converting the case to a postconviction relief action, the Superior Court appointed

counsel for Mr. Lambert. The parties acknowledge that the state and Mr. Lambert

filed cross-motions for summary judgment; and, after a hearing on March 9, 2022,

the hearing justice denied the state’s motion for summary judgment and granted

Mr. Lambert’s cross-motion for summary judgment and application for

postconviction relief.3

3
A review of the record indicates that neither the state’s motion for summary
judgment nor Mr. Lambert’s cross-motion for summary judgment appear to have
been filed in the docket. However, it is undisputed that the cross-motions were
heard and decided at the hearing that took place on March 9, 2022.

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On March 11, 2022, an order was entered consistent with the hearing

justice’s decision; and on March 15, 2022, an amended order was entered. On

March 9, 2022, a judgment was entered in favor of Mr. Lambert. On March 11,

2022, the state petitioned this Court for the issuance of a writ of certiorari. This

Court granted the state’s petition on May 11, 2023.4

II

Standard of Review

As this Court has previously noted, G.L. 1956 § 10-9.1-1 provides that “the

remedy of postconviction relief is available to any person who has been convicted

of a crime and who thereafter alleges either that the conviction violated the

applicant’s constitutional rights or that the existence of newly discovered material

facts requires vacation of the conviction in the interest of justice.” Mattatall v.

State, 947 A.2d 896, 901 (R.I. 2008). When “reviewing a hearing justice’s

determination with respect to an application for postconviction relief, this Court

will not disturb findings of the hearing justice absent clear error or a showing that

the hearing justice overlooked or misconceived material evidence.” Id. (internal

quotation marks and brackets omitted). This Court has further stated that

4
It has been brought to this Court’s attention that Mr. Lambert is currently
incarcerated at the Adult Correctional Institutions. It has also been represented
that, in September of 2023, a grand jury indicted Mr. Lambert in an unrelated case
on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On January 17, 2025, a
jury returned a guilty verdict on both the murder and conspiracy to commit murder
charges.
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“questions of fact concerning whether a defendant’s constitutional rights have been

infringed, and mixed questions of law and fact with constitutional implications, are

reviewed de novo.” Ouimette v. State, 785 A.2d 1132, 1135 (R.I. 2001).

III

Analysis

A

Parole Eligibility Calculation

The state asserts that the principal issue in this case is when an individual

serving a life sentence and a consecutive term of years is eligible for parole. In its

brief, the state took the position that, when determining Mr. Lambert’s parole

eligibility date, the hearing justice erred in aggregating Mr. Lambert’s sentences to

serve. The state further indicates that, when it first filed its brief in this case, this

was an issue of first impression.

There is no doubt that this Court’s recent opinion in Neves v. State, 316 A.3d

1197 (R.I. 2024), is controlling and entirely resolves the aggregation issue.

Although the Neves case primarily dealt with the interpretation of G.L. 1956

§ 13-8-13(e), which is not at issue in this case, this Court in Neves also addressed

the issue of determining parole eligibility when an individual is serving a life

sentence and a consecutive sentence of a term of years. Neves, 316 A.3d at 1207-

10. In so doing, the Court stated: “This Court has never held that a prisoner must

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be granted parole on one sentence to then begin serving the next consecutive

sentence.” Id. at 1209. The Court in Neves concluded that “the structure and

statutory framework governing parole mandates aggregating an offender’s multiple

definite and indeterminate sentences in order to calculate parole eligibility,

including consecutive sentences * * *.” Id. And the Court further stated:

“Recognizing that because the statutory scheme generally
requires that offenders serving multiple definite
sentences or multiple indeterminate sentences must have
their terms aggregated for parole eligibility purposes, it
would be inconsistent with the General Assembly’s
overall intent and the structure of the parole statutes to
conclude that chapter 8 prohibits aggregating an
offender’s sentences for parole eligibility purposes when
those sentences contain both definite and indeterminate
terms.” Id. at 1211 (emphasis omitted).

Accordingly, the hearing justice did not err in aggregating Mr. Lambert’s sentences

to determine his parole eligibility date. As such, we now proceed to consider the

state’s second and quite separate issue.

B

The Order Immediately Paroling Mr. Lambert to the Community

In addition to its contentions regarding the issue of the calculation of parole

eligibility, the state also contends that the hearing justice erred in ordering the

Parole Board to immediately parole Mr. Lambert from the Adult Correctional

Institutions (ACI) to the community. The state’s position is that, even if it was

correctly determined that Mr. Lambert was eligible for parole from the ACI, “there
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is no authority to support the Superior Court’s conclusion that * * * [Mr.] Lambert

w[as] entitled to be released on parole.” The state asserts that the “parole statutes

instead vest the Parole Board with the discretion to issue parole permits based on

its review of the criteria set forth in * * * § 13-8-14 and the Parole Board’s

guidelines and to identify terms and conditions of parole.” In response, Mr.

Lambert contends that “[t]he hearing justice correctly held that once the parole

permit was issued, the law required that * * * Mr. Lambert be released to the

community.” To that end, Mr. Lambert contends that “Sections 13-8-9(a) and

13-8-16(a) require that once a permit is issued, a prisoner must be released to the

community.”

Just as was the case with respect to the issue of the calculation of parole

eligibility, this Court in Neves sustained a virtually identical position taken by the

state with respect to Superior Court orders immediately paroling the respondents in

that case to the community. Neves, 316 A.3d at 1219. In Neves, this Court held

that the “trial justice exceeded his authority by ordering each respondent

immediately paroled to the community.” Id. The Court reasoned that, because the

respondents in that case

“each possessed a ‘signed, sealed, and issued’ permit
granting parole to each of their respective consecutive
sentences, and not the community, the trial justice was
without authority to order the parole board to order these
respondents to be immediately released when the parole

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board itself had not issued a permit to be at liberty on
parole.” Id. at 1220 (emphasis omitted).

As previously noted, the Parole Board minutes as well as the parole permit

relating to Mr. Lambert were introduced into evidence in the Superior Court, and

they reflect that the Parole Board voted to parole Mr. Lambert to his consecutive

sentence, as opposed to paroling him to the community. In accordance with the

holding in Neves, we likewise hold in the instant case that, because Mr. Lambert

was paroled to a consecutive sentence and not to the community, the hearing

justice lacked the authority to direct the Parole Board to order that Mr. Lambert be

immediately released to the community when it had not issued a permit for him to

be at liberty on parole. See Neves, 316 A.3d at 1220. The Parole Board’s normal

processes must take place before any decision to that effect (vel non) can be made.

Accordingly, the hearing justice erred in ordering the Parole Board to immediately

parole Mr. Lambert to the community.

IV

Conclusion

For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm in part and quash in part

the judgment of the Superior Court, and we remand the case to the Superior Court

with our decision endorsed thereon for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion. On remand, the Superior Court is directed to remand this case to the

Parole Board for such actions as it deems appropriate.
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Justice Long, concurring. I agree with the disposition of the appeal as

stated in the conclusion of the majority opinion. I write separately to explain my

analysis of the relevant question presented on appeal to this Court: whether the

hearing justice erred in ordering the parole board to release Mr. Lambert no later

than March 18, 2022.

This case began in April 2021 when Mr. Lambert filed, pro se, a verified

petition for a writ of habeas corpus (1) seeking a finding that he had been

unlawfully detained beyond the terms of his sentence and (2) requesting immediate

release from confinement “pursuant to the recommendation, and subject to the

supervision, of the [parole board].” The certified record on appeal reflects that the

state did not file an answer to Mr. Lambert’s petition. Nevertheless, on January 3,

2022, court-appointed counsel for Mr. Lambert filed a memorandum in support of

an application for postconviction relief. Although the certified record on appeal

does not include a written response or other pleading filed by the state, it is clear

from the transcript of the proceedings that occurred on March 9, 2022, that the

hearing justice, the parties, and amicus curiae treated the matter as governed by

G.L. 1956 chapter 9.1 of title 10, “Post Conviction Remedy.” It is thus deducible

that the hearing justice proceeded to consider the petition pursuant to § 10-9.1-6(c),

which provides:

“The court may grant a motion by either party for
summary disposition of the application when it appears
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from the pleadings, depositions, answers to
interrogatories, and admissions and agreements of fact,
together with any affidavits submitted, that there is no
genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”

The undisputed facts establish that when Mr. Lambert was convicted of

second-degree murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a

crime of violence in 1996, he was sentenced to consecutive sentences of life

imprisonment and ten years on the firearm conviction. Mr. Lambert’s parole date

was April 1, 2023. For reasons unknown, the Rhode Island Department of

Corrections (RIDOC) did not factor Mr. Lambert’s consecutive ten-year sentence

into his minimum parole eligibility date and thus calculated his minimum parole

eligibility date as December 1, 2009. Had RIDOC appropriately considered his

consecutive sentence when determining his minimum parole eligibility date, Mr.

Lambert’s minimum parole eligibility date would not have been before April 2013.

Mr. Lambert nevertheless appeared before the parole board in 2009. He

reappeared in 2015, 2018, and 2019; on December 11, 2019, the parole board

determined that he scored as low risk on the parole board’s risk assessment and

unanimously voted to parole Mr. Lambert with a release date set for December

2020. The parole board later accelerated the release date to September 2020.

On September 1, 2020, the day before Mr. Lambert was to be released to the

community, he reviewed and signed a parole permit granting him the right to be at

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liberty and detailing the conditions of his parole. On the morning of September 2,

he was informed that he would be receiving the contents of his inmate bank

account upon his release later that day. Before Mr. Lambert was released,

however, the warden, deputy warden, and a captain with RIDOC at the Adult

Correctional Institutions (ACI) called him to the rear of the ACI to inform him that

his parole had been revoked due to an error with his department record.

Specifically, the representatives of RIDOC informed him that “he has a ten[-]year

consecutive sentence that was found during the process of getting his discharge

papers together.” There is no record of any emergency meeting of the parole board

prior to the events of September 2, 2020.

The parole board scheduled a new hearing date of October 1, 2020; Mr.

Lambert appeared before the parole board on October 14, 2020, at which time the

Board “vote[d] unanimously to modify his parole release date on the LIFE

sentence to December 11, 2019.” The parole board issued a new parole permit on

October 20, 2020 (second parole permit), with the following special conditions:

“Parole to consecutive sentence with a retroactive date of December 11, 2019.” It

is undisputed that RIDOC’s method of disaggregating the life sentence and the

consecutive ten-year sentence lengthened Mr. Lambert’s date of parole eligibility

for release by an additional three years and four months.

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The hearing justice held a hearing on cross-motions for summary judgment

on March 9, 2022, approximately one year and four months after the parole board

issued the second parole permit. The state did not dispute the facts as alleged in

the verified petition but argued that the primary issue was one of statutory

interpretation and further that RIDOC’s method of disaggregating the life sentence

and the consecutive ten-year sentence was correct as a matter of law. Counsel for

Mr. Lambert argued that G.L. 1956 §§ 13-8-10 and 13-8-13 clearly required

aggregation of the sentences. He also emphasized that the parole board had

already unanimously awarded parole to Mr. Lambert.

The hearing justice concluded that Mr. Lambert was entitled to summary

judgment, including with respect to his request for immediate release from

confinement pursuant to the recommendation of the parole board, reasoning:

“[W]hen he was granted the parole permit to be at liberty
on September 1, 2020, to be released physically on the
following day, September 2, that he was entitled to be
paroled on both sentences to the community, to be at
liberty in the community where he would reside.”

Upon the state’s objection to Mr. Lambert’s immediate release from

confinement, the hearing justice ordered that Mr. Lambert was to be presented to

the parole board at the hearing scheduled for March 14, 2022. On March 15, 2022,

a written order entered providing that Mr. Lambert “is to be issued a parole permit

with a release date no later than March 18, 2022.”

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This Court reviews de novo an order granting summary judgment. Reyes v.

State, 141 A.3d 644, 652 (R.I. 2016).

I concur with my colleagues in the majority that the hearing justice exceeded

his authority by ordering that Mr. Lambert be immediately paroled to the

community. Neves v. State, 316 A.3d 1197, 1219-20 (R.I. 2024). This Court

recognized in Neves the weight that a signed, sealed, and issued parole permit

carries with it:

“Pursuant to G.L. 1956 § 13-8-21, all permits and orders
of the parole board issued under chapter 8 of title 13 must
be signed by the chairperson and one other member of
the parole board and must be affixed with the seal of the
board. Only at the point when the permit has been
signed, sealed, and issued is the permit for parole given
full recognition.” Neves, 316 A.3d at 1220 (quoting
Yang v. State, 703 A.2d 754, 756 (R.I. 1997)).

A decision granting parole authorizes an individual to be at liberty in the

community subject to the conditions of their parole permit, and there are minimum

procedural safeguards that a parole board must meet before revoking parole. See

Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482-89 (1972).

The facts of this case establish an undisputed and startling revocation of Mr.

Lambert’s parole in the moments before he was scheduled to leave the ACI on

September 2, 2020, with a unanimously granted parole permit in hand. On these

facts, and in light of the lack of briefing on the issue or the appearance of either

RIDOC or the parole board as parties to the proceedings, I cannot agree with my
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colleagues’ statement that they are not “aware of any reason why the [p]arole

[b]oard would have been unable to amend a previously issued parole permit and to

correct an error contained therein.”

What troubles me—and what clearly troubled the hearing justice—is the

swift and arbitrary way in which RIDOC and the parole board elected to reverse

course with respect to Mr. Lambert. In my view, the decision to revoke Mr.

Lambert’s parole when he was on the way out the door raises more than merely a

question of administrative error. A signed, sealed, and issued parole permit to be

at liberty in the community carries with it more than bureaucratic formality; it

embodies the parole board’s considered determination that a person may reenter

society. See Yang, 703 A.2d at 756. To rescind that permit requires some level of

process.1 See § 13-8-18.1. That process is an acknowledgment of the human cost

of depriving someone of their freedom. See Morrissey, 408 U.S. at 482 (“We see,

therefore, that the liberty of a parolee, although indeterminate, includes many of

the core values of unqualified liberty and its termination inflicts a ‘grievous loss’

1
General Laws 1956 § 13-8-18.1 provides, in pertinent part, that a parolee is
entitled to written notice within five days of his detention as an alleged violator of
the time, place, and purpose of the preliminary revocation hearing, and a
preliminary revocation hearing “[a]s soon as is practicable” but no longer than ten
days following the service of notice.
Here, it is undisputed that Mr. Lambert did not receive notice before his
parole was unilaterally revoked, and then waited six weeks to appear before the
parole board for a hearing. At that hearing, the parole board decided to issue a new
parole permit that accounted for his consecutive sentence.
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on the parolee and often on others.”). Revocation absent that process flies in the

face of fundamental fairness. See id. at 484 (“Society thus has an interest in not

having parole revoked because of erroneous information or because of an

erroneous evaluation of the need to revoke parole, given the breach of parole

conditions. * * * And society has a further interest in treating the parolee with

basic fairness: fair treatment in parole revocations will enhance the chance of

rehabilitation by avoiding reactions to arbitrariness.”); see also § 13-8-18.1. Even

though no constitutional due-process claim has been raised for our review, I cannot

ignore the troublesome implications of the tacit endorsement of RIDOC’s actions

and the parole board’s revocation under these circumstances.

Notwithstanding my own reservations, no party has appealed or briefed any

issue related to the revocation of Mr. Lambert’s parole. As a result, I would decide

this case, as the majority does, solely on the grounds of the hearing justice’s error

in ordering the parole board to issue a parole permit with a release date no later

than March 18, 2022. Because it is undisputed that Mr. Lambert possessed the

“signed, sealed, and issued” second parole permit granting parole to his

consecutive sentence, the hearing justice was without authority to order the parole

board to issue a parole permit with a release date no later than March 18, 2022.

Neves, 316 A.3d at 1220.

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