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Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH . FILED 

Un1ted States Court of Ai)if=::J 

Tenth Circuit 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 2 6 1996 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

JAMES EDWARD HALL, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

ROBERT FURLONG; ATTORNEY GENERAL 

FOR THE STATE OF COLORADO, 

Respondents-Appellees. 

PATRICK FiSHER Cler~t 

No. 95-1176 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO 

(D.C. No. 95-S-322) 

Submitted on the briefs: 

James Edward Hall, pro se. 

Gale A. Norton, Attorney General, Paul S. Sanzo, First Assistant 

Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Respondents-Appellees. 

Before BRORBY, HOLLOWAY, and HENRY, Circuit Judges. 

BRORBY, Circuit Judge. 

Petitioner James Edward Hall appeals the district court's 

order denying his petition for habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

Appellate Case: 95-1176 Document: 01019276446 Date Filed: 02/26/1996 Page: 1 
§ 2254. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2253. We 

reverse the district court's order and remand for further 

proceedings.1 

Mr. Hall's petition shows that he was arrested on August 3, 

1977, was unable to post bail due to indigency,2 and therefore 

remained confined in jail for 219 days prior to being sentenced. 

After pleading guilty to first degree sexual assault, a class two 

felony, Mr. Hall received an indeterminate sentence of twentyseven to fifty years. The fifty-year term was the maximum 

sentence authorized by law for a class two felony on the date of 

his offense. See People v. Hall, 619 P.2d 492, 492 & n.2 (Colo. 

1980). 

1 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously to grant the parties' request for a 

decision on the briefs without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(f) and lOth Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

2 The State contends that Mr. Hall failed to allege indigency 

in his petition. We construe liberally the petition of a pro se 

prisoner. See Ruark v. Solano, 928 F.2d 947, 949 (lOth Cir. 

1991). In his statement of supporting facts, Mr. Hall states the 

following: 

A person who had been unable to make bond because of his 

indigency, and upon conviction is sentence[d] to the 

statutory maximum imposable sentence authorized by law, 

and is not given credit for time spent in custody before 

trial, during trial, pending sentence and such credit to 

be given against both m~n~mum and maximum terms of 

imprisonment, the court is illegally extending the 

sentence beyond the statutory limits. 

R. Vol. I, doc. 3 at 7 (emphasis added) 

The petition also indicates that Mr. Hall was represented by 

the public defender at the time of his arraignment and plea. The 

habeas petition which Mr. Hall signed was made under penalty of 

perjury in compliance with 28 U.S.C. § 1746, and thus had the 

force of an affidavit or sworn declaration. 

2 

Appellate Case: 95-1176 Document: 01019276446 Date Filed: 02/26/1996 Page: 2 
The Colorado trial court credited Mr. Hall with eighty-four 

days for time served toward the minimum term of his sentence, but 

gave him no credit toward his maximum sentence. Mr. Hall contends 

that he was denied equal protection of the laws when his indigency 

caused him to remain incarcerated prior to trial, and he failed to 

receive full credit for time served against both the minimum and 

maximum terms of his sentence. 

The district court, following the recommendation of the 

magistrate judge assigned to this case, concluded that Mr. Hall's 

petition did not present a justiciable controversy. It also 

concluded that failure to award Mr. Hall the requested credit did 

not violate his rights to due process or to equal protection. 

I. 

In Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235 (1970), the United 

States Supreme Court determined that when a defendant's aggregate 

imprisonment resulting solely from involuntary inability to pay a 

fine or court costs exceeds the maximum term fixed by statute, 

there is an impermissible discrimination based upon inability to 

pay. Id. at 240-41. The Court reasoned that "the Equal 

Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the 

statutory ceiling placed on imprisonment for any substantive 

offense be the same for all defendants irrespective of their 

economic status. 11 Id. at 244; see also Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 

395, 398-99 (1971). 

Several of our sister circuits have applied the Williams rule 

to require that an indigent unable to post bail receive credit 

against the maximum sentence for time spent in presentence 

3 

Appellate Case: 95-1176 Document: 01019276446 Date Filed: 02/26/1996 Page: 3 
confinement. See Johnson v. Riveland, 855 F.2d 1477, 1484 n.7 

(lOth Cir. 1988) (citing cases from sister circuits). In Vasguez 

v. Cooper, 862 F.2d 250 (lOth Cir. 1988), this court declined to 

extend the rule in Williams to situations in which " [an 

indigent's] total time to be spent in confinement does not exceed 

the maximum term defined by statute." Id. at 254. We reasoned 

that when an indigent receives less than the statutory maximum 

term for his offense, he is in the same position as a defendant 

who receives bail, because in both cases, 

the total time during which liberty would be 

deprived ... is specifically considered by the judge. 

Requiring the judge to determine the sentence necessary 

to serve the state's penological interests by 

disregarding the time previously served by the 

defendant, and then mechanically subtracting that time 

from the sentence given, would be an artificial and 

meaningless exercise. 

Id. at 253. 

We did not, however, have occasion in Vasquez to determine 

whether an indigent has a constitutional right to receive credit 

for time served where his presentence incarceration time, when 

added to the sentence he received, exceeds the maximum authorized 

sentence. We acknowledged that a period of confinement which 

effectively exceeds the maximum authorized by law might implicate 

other concerns. Id. at 253 n.3; see also Johnson, 855 F.2d at 

1484 n.7; Brotherton v. United States, 420 F.2d 1357, 1357 (lOth 

Cir. 1970) (acknowledging that federal district court had 

discretion to deny credit where total of sentence time and prior 

custody was within permissible term); Davis v. Willingham, 415 

F.2d 344, 345-46 (lOth Cir. 1969) {adopting presumption that credit 

4 

Appellate Case: 95-1176 Document: 01019276446 Date Filed: 02/26/1996 Page: 4 
for presentence custody not granted where maximum sentence 

imposed) . 

II. 

The district court determined, however, that Mr. Hall's 

challenge to his sentence was not ripe for decision at this time. 

It reasoned that even though Mr. Hall received the maximum 

sentence for his crime, since he has served only approximately 

seventeen years of that sentence and might be released prior to 

serving the entire sentence on parole or due to good time credits, 

he was "not at risk at this time for serving a sentence in excess 

of the maximum." R. Vol. I doc. 8 at 2 (emphasis added) . 

The district court's analysis imports an overly narrow 

reading to the rule in Williams and Tate. Although many of the 

cases cited above, including Vasguez, speak of total "confinement" 

in excess of the statutory maximum, the fact that Mr. Hall might 

receive early release is irrelevant to a determination of whether 

his constitutional rights were violated in this instance. See 

Hook v. Arizona, 496 F.2d 1172, 1174 (9th Cir. 1974) .3 The fact 

that indigents can receive good time credits, just as nonindigents, does not detract from the violation of equal protection 

which may occur if indigents who receive a maximum sentence do not 

receive credit for time served. Good time credits are "fixed by 

3 Johnson, 855 F.2d at 1480-83, cited by the district court, is 

not to the contrary. In that case, the petitioner unsuccessfully 

sought credit against a minimum sentence from which he had been 

paroled, on the ground that he might be reincarcerated at some 

date in the future. We refused to allow petitioner to "bank" 

credits against possible future wrongdoing. Id. at 1483. The 

petitioner's possible reincarceration in that case was 

speculative; Mr. Hall is actually incarcerated at this time. 

5 

Appellate Case: 95-1176 Document: 01019276446 Date Filed: 02/26/1996 Page: 5 
statute," just as is the maximum term for a given offense. See 

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 17-22.5-201. 

Moreover, under the district court's reasoning, Mr. Hall 

would have to wait to bring his petition until he had actually 

served forty-nine years and 146 days of his sentence. This smacks 

of the prematurity doctrine, rejected by the United States Supreme 

Court in Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 64 (1968); see also Preiser 

v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 487-88 (1973) (discussing applicability 

of Peyton to claims involving good time credits) . We conclude 

that Mr. Hall's petition presents a justiciable controversy. 

III. 

We turn to the merits of Mr. 

aggregate imprisonment exceeds the 

statute and results directly from an 

Hall's claim. "[W]hen the 

maximum period fixed by the 

involuntary nonpayment of 

fine or court costs [or, as in this case, an inability to make 

bail] we are confronted with an impermissible discrimination that 

rests on ability to pay. . . " Williams, 399 U.S. at 240-41. It 

is impermissible, under the Equal Protection Clause, to require 

that indigents serve sentences greater than the maximum provided 

by statute solely by reason of their indigency. When an indigent 

receives the maximum sentence for his crime, the process of 

crediting him with time served is no longer an "artificial and 

meaningless exercise." Vasquez, 862 F.2d at 253. We have found 

no circuit which denies credit for time served under these 

circumstances. Accordingly, we now hold that the Equal Protection 

Clause mandates the grant of full credit toward the maximum term 

6 

Appellate Case: 95-1176 Document: 01019276446 Date Filed: 02/26/1996 Page: 6 
of Mr. Hall's sentence for the time he spent incarcerated prior to 

sentencing due to his indigency. 

IV. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of Colorado is REVERSED, and the cause is REMANDED for 

further proceedings in accordance herewith.4 The mandate shall 

issue forthwith. 

4 Mr. Hall's petition also requests full credit against his 

minimum sentence for presentence time served. We find no 

constitutional violation in denial of this credit, particularly 

since the function of the m1n1mum term of an indeterminate 

sentence is to establish a parole date and Mr. Hall is already 

eligible for parole. See Vasquez, 862 F.2d at 254 (sentence not 

in excess of maximum did not raise equal protection concern based 

on indigency) . 

7 

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