Opinion ID: 1539320
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: contract with the attorney general of the united states

Text: The Congress of the United States (U. S.C.A., Title 18 § 5003) and our Legislature (Section 32-A) have authorized the contract with which we are here concerned. There is a mutual interest and responsibility for the housing, treating, and rehabilitation of persons who have been found unwilling or incapable of meeting the demands of society. The federal government has established and maintains a variety of institutions to meet varying penal needs. It has been, and doubtless will be, impossible for each State to furnish comparable facilities. The availability of these institutions to the states is fully as beneficial as it is detrimental to those persons required to live in them. We cannot expect all of the inmates to admit to this view. The validity of a contract between the Attorney General of the United States and the State to transfer federal prisoners to state physical custody as provided in U.S. C.A., Title 18, § 4002 was affirmed in Rosenberg v. Carroll, 99 F.Supp. 630 (D.C. N.Y.1951) and the validity of a contract between the Attorney General of the United States and a State to accept transfer of a state prisoner into federal physical custody as provided by U.S.C.A., Title 18, § 5003 was affirmed in Duncan, supra. The clause in the transfer contract of which petitioner complains is lifted from subparagraph (c) of reference § 5003. It may also be recorded that federal prisoners confined to a State Prison are subject to the same discipline and treatment as those sentenced by the court of the State in which the Prison is located. Rosenberg, supra. Whether the transfer exposes the prisoner to a more rigid custody than is incidental to service of sentence in the Maine State Prison is a question of fact, not law. The clause offensive to the petitioner does not violate his constitutional rights.