Welch and Weerapunyanont v. Dotson et al.; Whitmore v. Walters

The ACLU of Virginia and Ali and Lockwood LLP filed two related cases challenging the Virginia Department of Corrections’ (VDOC) refusal to implement the earned sentence credit program according to the law, resulting in the over-detention of potentially hundreds of people in VDOC’s custody. Welch and Weerapunyanont v. Dotson et al. and Whitmore v. Walters, both class action lawsuits, seek damages to compensate people who have served more time than they should have, and injunctive relief to ensure that VDOC implements the law properly going forward.

Virginia law makes everyone convicted of a felony eligible to earn sentence credits beginning as soon as they are incarcerated after their conviction. And when the General Assembly expanded the number of credits people could earn, they mandated that VDOC award those credits to eligible individuals. But VDOC has ignored this law, and instead waits until they have calculated someone’s release date—which might be months after the person has begun serving their sentence—to begin awarding full earned sentence credits. As a result, people miss out on sentence credits that the law says they are entitled to.

Our clients in Welch both served about two months longer than they would have if VDOC had followed the law, missing out on time with their families and the ability to go back to work. Our client Dustin Whitmore is in danger of suffering the same thing.

These are the fifth and sixth cases the ACLU of Virginia has filed on behalf of incarcerated people who have been harmed by VDOC’s refusal to implement the earned sentence credit program as written. Three of these other cases – Prease v. Clarke, Puryear v. Dotson, and Garcia Vasquez v. Dotson – were successful in forcing VDOC to change its policies around which offenses were eligible for enhanced earned sentence credits. These cases seeks to establish when VDOC must begin awarding enhanced earned sentence credits on eligible sentences.