Opinion ID: 346635
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Loss of Liberty as an Infamous Punishment.

Text: 49 From the first time that it construed the indictment clause the Supreme Court has recognized that the provision is not static. Wilson explicitly acknowledged that (w)hat punishments shall be considered as infamous may be affected by the changes of public opinion from one age to another, and suggested that two punishments (whipping and stocks) previously considered moderate, at the present day . . . might be thought (to be) infamous. . . . 114 U.S. at 427-28, 5 S.Ct. at 940. The Court in Mackin approved of this temporal limitation on the definition of infamous punishments 117 U.S. at 351, 6 S.Ct. 777, and included it in its holding that at the present day imprisonment in a . . . penitentiary . . . is an infamous punishment. (Id. at 352, 6 S.Ct. at 779, see United States v. Moreland (1922) 258 U.S. 433, 451, 42 S.Ct. 368, 66 L.Ed. 700 (Brandeis, J., dissenting).) 50 Ramirez contends that at the present day confinement for more than one year constitutes infamous punishment. We agree. Our discussion in Part II, supra, illustrates a system of punishment different from that considered by the Wilson, Mackin and Moreland Courts. The most severe non-capital punishment imposed today is the deprivation of liberty and the subjection of the convict to supervision and control by the Attorney General and prison authorities. 51 The paramount importance of the length of confinement in the federal system of criminal punishment is evident throughout the criminal code. In contrast to its failure to specify what treatment, rehabilitative, or disciplinary measures are to be used in federal prisons, Congress has enacted detailed guidelines for determining the actual term of a prisoner's confinement. Those provisions include a prescribed method of sentence computation and credit for time served prior to commencement of sentence (18 U.S.C. § 3568); a deduction for good time served (18 U.S.C. §§ 4161-66); and guidelines for release on parole prior to the expiration of the prisoner's term (18 U.S.C. §§ 4201-08). 52 More importantly, Congress' division of authority between the trial judge and the Attorney General reflects a system in which criminals are punished by depriving them of their liberty, not by the type of institution in which they are confined. With the abandonment of hard labor and penitentiary confinement as punishments for specific crimes, the control of the sentencing judge over the severity of the punishment is exercised through his determination of the period of time for which a convict may lose his freedom. Within statutory limits, the trial court can increase the penalty by stipulating the maximum possible term of confinement and by designating a minimum term which must be served prior to a prisoner's eligibility for parole. (18 U.S.C. §§ 3651-56.) The trial judge may not, however, designate the institution of confinement or require that any other punitive sanctions be imposed while the prisoner is confined. (United States v. Janiec (3rd Cir. 1974) 505 F.2d 983, 987, cert. denied, (1975) 420 U.S. 948, 95 S.Ct. 1332, 43 L.Ed.2d 427; United States v. Myers (9th Cir. 1972) 451 F.2d 402, 404; Thogmartin v. Moseley (D.Kan.1969) 313 F.Supp. 158, aff'd, (10th Cir.) 430 F.2d 1178, cert. denied, (1970) 400 U.S. 910, 91 S.Ct. 155, 27 L.Ed.2d 150. On the other hand, the Attorney General's control over the institution and conditions of confinement does not include the power to impose further punishment for the crime committed. His charge is to provide for (the convict's) proper government, discipline, treatment, care, rehabilitation, and reformation. (18 U.S.C. § 4001.) To be sure, discipline encompasses punitive action as well as the maintenance of good order in the institution, but the punitive sanctions imposed by the Attorney General are not a result of the crime which brought the prisoner into the penal system. The Attorney General is not authorized to put a prisoner in solitary confinement, employ him, or transfer him to a penitentiary because the prisoner robbed a bank, stole a car, or violated the law in some other manner; his powers are directed to providing an individualized system of discipline, care, and treatment in an integrated system. (18 U.S.C. § 4081.) That is, the Attorney General may establish a disciplinary regimen or take punitive action because of the needs of the institution and system of institutions, or because of a particular prisoner's poor response to the prison environment. He may not, however, punish individual prisoners for their crimes. Thus, before disciplinary sanctions may be imposed, prison authorities must provide procedures in accord with the minimum requirements of due process in order to reach a mutual accommodation between institutional needs and objectives and the . . . Constitution. (Wolff v. McDonnell (1974) 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935, see Bureau of Prisons Policy Statement 7400-5D (July 7, 1975) (implementing McDonnell).) 53 The development of a system wherein the loss of liberty is the most severe non-capital punishment available to a sentencing judge reflects, we believe, changes in public opinion from one age to another. Persons convicted are no longer deprived of their liberty so that they may be punished in prison; rather, they are punished by being deprived of their liberty. The punitive element connected with the crime, and the only element still controlled by the sentencing judge, is the loss of freedom for some period of time. Within this system punishments can be distinguished, for the purpose of applying the indictment clause, only in terms of the length of time during which a prisoner is deprived of his freedom. We therefore conclude that a criminal defendant who is subject to confinement for more than one year must be prosecuted by an indictment. Although not an inexorable result, the more-than-one-year formula has, since 1865, been the effective limit of the indictment clause as applied to imprisonment without hard labor. It also is the method used by Congress to distinguish between felonies and misdemeanors (18 U.S.C. § 1(1)), and is the formula used in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (Fed.R.Crim.P. 7(a)). 19 (See also 18 U.S.C. § 4208(a).) 54