Title: Gardner v. Collier

State: mississippi

Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court

Document:

274 So. 2d 662 (1973) Hollis L. GARDNER v. John A. COLLIER, Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary, et al. No. 47042. Supreme Court of Mississippi. March 12, 1973. Howard Q. Davis, Jr., Indianola, for appellant. A.F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by James W. Haddock, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellees. *663 SUGG, Justice: Appellant was granted a parole on July 30, 1971, from a life sentence imposed by the Circuit Court of Lowndes County, Mississippi, following his conviction for the crime of murder at the November, 1951, term of said court. He was arrested on the same day and returned to the Mississippi State Penitentiary on July 31, 1971, and thereafter his parole was revoked. He sought reinstatement of his parole by a petition for writ of habeas corpus filed with the Circuit Judge of Sunflower County. Appellant assigns as error the following: Approximately seven or eight hours after his release from prison, appellant was arrested by officers of the City of Cleveland, Mississippi, Police Department, charged with public drunkenness, and detained overnight in the Bolivar County jail. The next morning Gardner's parole officer called Henry C. Williams, Deputy Administrative Assistant to the State Probation and Parole Board, and requested that he go to the county jail to investigate the matter. In compliance with this request, Williams and another parole officer went to the jail in Cleveland, Mississippi, where appellant was detained. Williams testified that appellant stated to him, "I have messed up I started drinking in Cleveland but I don't know how I got in Clarksdale." Upon this admission by appellant, Williams informed him that he was going to carry him back to Parchman. Williams requested a parole revocation on the grounds of public drunkenness. Williams testified that he told Gardner of his statutory right to a hearing before the Probation and Parole Board. In addition to this notification there was testimony that each prisoner is told of his right to *664 a revocation hearing at the time of his release. Appellant denied he was told that he had a right to a hearing; that he requested a sobriety test at the time of his arrest; that he had been given a hearing on a prior occasion when a previous parole granted him was revoked. After a trial on May 3, 1972, the relief requested in the petition for writ of habeas corpus was denied without prejudice to the petitioner to pursue his statutory remedy with the Probation and Parole Board of the State of Mississippi. The order of the court contained this statement: Appended to the briefs filed in this case are documents dealing with matters which were not in evidence at the hearing on May 3, 1971, and the additional information contained in the briefs is not properly before the Court; therefore, this decision is based solely on the evidence adduced at the hearing. In Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 92 S. Ct. 2593, 33 L. Ed. 2d 484 (1972), the Supreme Court of the United States dealt with the rights due a defendant in a parole revocation proceeding and stated: The decision of Morrissey, supra, was not made retroactive and the Court stated: In Morrissey, supra, the State of Iowa contended that the parolees had admitted the parole violations but the court in reviewing the record, noted that the interview relied on to show that the parolees admitted the violations, came to the Court only in the State's brief. The Court stated: In the instant case a determination was made by an independent officer that appellant admitted violation of his parole, thus justifying his detention and return to the Penitentiary. As previously noted, Williams and another parole officer interrogated appellant on the morning following his arrest where he admitted a violation of his parole. Appellant knew why Williams had come to the jail at Cleveland and he knew the parole violation he was charged with. When he freely admitted that he had become intoxicated there was adequate reason for his detention and return to the Mississippi State Penitentiary without the necessity of a preliminary hearing. Under the provisions of Section 4004-13 Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated (1956), appellant is entitled to a hearing before the Parole Board on the question of whether or not his parole should be revoked. The pertinent part of the Section reads as follows: It is suggested in the brief for appellant that such a hearing has now been held but the record of such hearing is not before us for consideration and we are therefore unable to make a determination as to whether or not he was afforded a hearing as required by law. The Circuit Judge properly denied the petition for writ of habeas corpus. We therefore affirm. Affirmed. All Justices concur.