Court Opinion

ID: 9461367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:12:47.313671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:01.548371
License: Public Domain

LEWIS R. MORGAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The majority today takes its cue from Richard Lovelace, author of the oft-quoted lines, “Stone walls do not a prison make/Nor iron bars a cage.” 1 Neither, the majority implicitly holds, does imprisonment equal punishment if the prisoner has chosen to await the outcome of his appeal in jail rather than prison. Since I believe a prisoner is constitutionally entitled to credit for time spent in state-imposed imprisonment, I respectfully dissent.
The majority rests its opinion on two rather questionable assumptions. The first is that all prisoners are well informed of their choice under the Alabama statutory scheme. In an ideal world, such might be the case; in our imperfect world, I believe such an assumption is mere wishful thinking. The truth is that Alabama prisoners are presumed to want their sentences suspended. No state official is required to inform them of their right to “waive benefit of suspended sentence.” There is no question in my mind that many prisoners never obtain this information from any source, and that the “choice” which the majority finds so important is therefore non-existent in many cases. The crucial distinction between this case and Robinson v. Beto, 426 F.2d 797 (5th Cir. 1970), and Hart v. Henderson, 449 F.2d 183 (5th Cir. 1971) thus fades neatly away.
I therefore view the Alabama statute as one which automatically denies a prisoner credit for time spent in jail pending appeal, unless he somehow discovers that he has a right to waive benefit of suspended sentence. The question is thus, it seems to me, whether a state may enact such a scheme consistently with the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against double jeopardy.
This raises the majority’s second questionable assumption: that Dimmick v. Tompkins, 194 U.S. 540, 24 S.Ct. 780, 48 L.Ed. 1110 (1904) is still the law. In light of North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969) I simply cannot agree that it is. I believe that the Court in Pearce clearly indicated that our Constitution is concerned with protecting citizens from excessive punishment, without regard to where or when the punishment occurs. Pearce is not controlling, of course, since it deals with resentencing after a second trial, but the central idea is directly on point: “. . . this basic constitutional guarantee [protection against double jeopardy] is violated when punishment already exacted for an offense is not fully ‘credited’ . . ..” 395 U.S. at 718, 89 S.Ct. at 2077.
No amount of legal legerdemain can hide the fact that Gamble was not given credit for punishment already exacted in the county jail when he was transferred *99to the state prison. We offer him but cold comfort in holding that he was not being “punished” while in the county jail because he had chosen to remain there. I believe the Constitution demands that he be given credit for that time, and I would therefore affirm the district court.

. “To Althea: From Prison”