Winters v. Ridley

How later courts described this case

• discussing whether an inmate’s "good time credit” accumulated pursuant to the “Good Time Credits Act” ("GTCA”) passed in 1986 could be applied to reduce the inmate's mandatory minimum sentence for first-degree murder; observing that ten of the thirteen members of the Council who passed the GTCA were also members of the Council in 1989; and reasoning that the Council’s unanimous passage in 1989 of a resolution and legislation declaring that the GTCA was not intended to affect mandatory minimum sentences imposed for first-degree murder was "surely revealing as to what the 1986 Council intended to accomplish” through the GTCA and "providefd] persuasive evidence of [the Council's] intent in 1986 .... [i]n the absence of evidence that the members of the Council were mistaken, or worse, about what they initially intended”
• finding ambiguity and consulting legislative history where two sections “appear[ed] to be nudging [the court] in opposite directions” and the language of the statutes was not dispositive
• describing the Council's "swift and emphatic" reaction against federal court ruling authorizing good time credit for first degree murderers
• noting that "[t]he Council's reaction" rejecting Cunningham "was swift and emphatic"

Written by the judges who cited it.