Background
In July 2018, Nomatter Hudson pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to twenty-five years with the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC). During her incarceration she completed numerous educational, vocational, and rehabilitative programs and served in leadership and instructional roles, but MDOC never awarded her trusty earned time (TET) — a form of sentence reduction available to inmates classified in “trusty status.” MDOC’s internal classification policy expressly excludes offenders convicted of attempted murder from trusty status eligibility.
In November 2024, Hudson filed a grievance through MDOC’s Administrative Remedy Program, arguing that MDOC was unlawfully denying her TET solely because of her conviction. She contended that Mississippi Code Section 47-5-138.1(2) lists only five specific offenses and sentence types that disqualify an inmate already in trusty status from earning TET — and attempted murder is not among them. She further argued that any MDOC authority to add crimes to that disqualifying list would unconstitutionally increase her punishment in violation of the separation of powers. MDOC denied relief at both steps of its administrative process. On February 24, 2025, Hudson petitioned the Rankin County Circuit Court, which affirmed MDOC’s decision on May 28, 2025, finding MDOC has statutory discretion to deny TET. Hudson appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
The Court’s Holding
The Mississippi Supreme Court, writing through Chief Justice Randolph, unanimously affirmed. The court held that Section 47-5-138.1(2) — the provision listing disqualifying offenses — applies only to an offender already “in trusty status.” Because MDOC has statutory authority to define trusty status through its classification board, and because MDOC’s policy excludes attempted-murder convictions from trusty status altogether, Hudson never attained trusty status in the first place. A person who has never been placed in trusty status cannot invoke the protections of Subsection (2), rendering that provision inapplicable to her claim. MDOC therefore did not violate the statute by withholding TET.
The court also rejected Hudson’s constitutional challenge. She argued that excluding her from TET eligibility effectively increased her sentence, encroaching on the legislature’s exclusive power to define crimes and fix punishments. The court disagreed: no inmate has a legal entitlement to trusty-time reductions, so withholding TET does not increase a sentence — it merely declines to reduce one. The court distinguished Hudson’s reliance on Puckett v. Abels, 684 So. 2d 671 (Miss. 1996), noting that case concerned ex post facto changes to parole statutes, whereas Hudson made no allegation that the disqualification was applied retroactively after her sentencing. Her citation to Graham v. Florida and Solem v. Helm — standing for the proposition that a sentence without parole eligibility is more severe — was likewise unavailing because comparative severity at sentencing differs from a post-sentencing increase in punishment.
Key Takeaways
- MDOC’s classification board has broad statutory authority to define trusty status, including the power to exclude categories of offenders (such as those convicted of attempted murder) from trusty status altogether — a threshold determination that precedes, and is separate from, the disqualifying conditions listed in Section 47-5-138.1(2).
- The canon of inclusio unius est exclusio alterius does not help inmates challenging trusty-time denials when they never qualified for trusty status; the statutory disqualification list in Subsection (2) only governs offenders who have already been granted that status.
- Inmates have no constitutional or statutory entitlement to sentence-reducing trusty time; therefore, MDOC’s denial of TET does not “increase” a sentence and raises no separation-of-powers or ex post facto concern.
- Judicial review of MDOC administrative decisions is highly deferential — courts will not disturb the agency’s decision absent a lack of substantial evidence, arbitrariness, an act beyond the agency’s powers, or a constitutional violation.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies the two-step structure of Mississippi’s trusty-time statute and confirms that MDOC retains wide discretion to set eligibility criteria for trusty status before the statutory disqualification list ever comes into play. Attorneys representing inmates seeking sentence-reduction credits must now reckon with the threshold question of whether their client has been formally classified to trusty status — a prerequisite the agency itself controls — rather than relying solely on the absence of their client’s offense from the Subsection (2) list.
More broadly, the ruling reinforces the principle that discretionary sentence-reduction programs do not create entitlements, insulating MDOC’s classification policies from constitutional attack on punishment-enhancement grounds. Defense counsel and prison-reform advocates seeking to challenge restrictive TET policies will likely need to pursue legislative change rather than litigation under the current statutory framework.