Court Opinion

ID: 9720710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:39:51.652492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:20.746641
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). Before us is another appeal by a veteran convict for relief from the legal effect of successive felonies committed by him. Starting in Michigan from conviction for larceny from the person, and proceeding thence to successive convictions for armed robbery in Georgia and then in Illinois following his initial parole by Michigan, he objects to further incarceration in our state for violation of that parole. He wants credit, for time served in Georgia and Illinois, applied to service he yet owes Michigan for crimes committed in Michigan. This he asks upon allegation that the legislature of our state has intended and now intends that the service of a sentence or sentences imposed by another or several other states constitutes a part of the service of one or more sentences imposed under the laws of our state.
*193I have stated the contention without verbiage. Let it stand, so that legislators may read and comprehend Mr. Browning’s declaration of what is said to have been in their minds when they voted enactment of the statutes mentioned below.
Twenty-four years ago the controlling principle of today’s issue came before the then Attorney General of Michigan, upon request of the Director of Corrections:
“The director of corrections has requested the opinion of the attorney general upon the question of when a sentence for a felony committed by an escaped felon while at large commences to run, and whether it runs concurrently with the remainder of the sentence interrupted by the prison breach.”
Writing for the Attorney General, assistant attorney general Peter E. Bradt quoted Justice Cardozo’s opinion, for the Court, of People v. Ingber (1928), 248 NY 302 (162 NE 87). Then he concluded  (p 267):
“The attorney general holds that a prison breach interrupts the service of sentence, and that such interruption continues during the service of a second sentence for a crime committed while at large following the prison breach, despite the fact that the second sentence is served in the same prison from which escape was made. Service under the original sentence is not resumed until after completion of the sentence imposed for the crime committed by the convict unlawfully at large.”
I perceive no difference between the effect of a prison escape ending in another felony, and an effort by rehabilitative parole which results in the same or worse criminal acts. Nor do I perceive from the aforesaid statutes that the legislature has intended *194or willed otherwise. As Cardozo concluded in the cited Ingber case; “Nothing short of obvious compulsion will lead us to a reading of the statute whereby the pains and penalties of crimes are shorn of all terrors more poignant than a form of words.”
As with other criminal appeals submitted this year, I find myself almost automatically in the minority. Such being the case, perhaps the best way to respond to majority agreement with this particular felon (without using up more useless pages of our reports) is to say simply that I agree with the Attorney General when he declares:
“In Michigan, the parolee is credited with time served on parole without violations. This is the intent of both the amended and prior version of the statute involved. For example, as amended MSA § 28.2308 [MCLA 1971 Cum Supp § 791.238] provides that a Michigan parolee who commits a crime while on parole:
“ ‘ . . . shall be liable, when arrested, to serve out the expired portion of his maximum imprisonment, and the time from the date of declared violation to the date of his availability for return to any penal institution under the control of the commission shall not be counted as any part or portion of the time to be served . . . ’
“Similarily, MSA § 28.2308 [MCLA §791.238] prior to the 1968 amendment provided a Michigan parolee who violated the provisions of his parole was:
“ ‘ . . . liable, when arrested, to serve out the unexpired portion of his maximum imprisonment, and the time from the date of his declared delinquency to the date of his arrest shall not be counted as any part or portion of the time to be served ...'"
Then, having pointed to a list of States furnished by the Model Penal Code (tentative draft No. 5, *1951956, p 126) in support of his statement that “Michigan is not alone in granting credit only for time served on parole which is free of violations”, the Attorney General concludes, and I agree:
“Hence, granting petitioner credit only for time served on parole which is free of violations reflects the spirit and letter of Michigan statutes and a common practice of sister states.”
I would affirm.
T. E. Brennan, J., concurred with Black, J.