Court Opinion

ID: 6871666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 21:02:03.560413+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:05:25.256937
License: Public Domain

SIBLEY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The conclusion reached by the majority makes impractical any real punishment for the federal offenses committed while out on parole. It is true that the violation of the parole is punished by a loss of good time on the old sentence and by having to serve it in full. But that is all punishment for the old offense and its incidents. It would be suffered whether there was a second federal offense or some other failure to keep parole. Suppose the remainder of the old sentence is two years, and the maximum sentence -for the new offense is two years or less. If, as the court holds, the sentences must be served concurrently there is no real punishment for the new crime. The judge can do nothing effectual about it. He cannot terminate the parole or order the arrest of the prisoner as a parole violator, for exclusive power to do all that is expressly vested by section 3 of the Act of May 13, 1930 (18 U.S.C.A. § 723c), in the Board of Parole and its members. If he should direct the new sentence to take effect on the completion of the old, would he release the prisoner meanwhile? Could the prisoner thus be at large for years if the Board failed to act? Would it be right to leave the prisoner in this state of- uncertainty? The judges here making the second sentences did what seemed to them their plain duty and their only function: they fixed a punishment for the new offenses and committed the prisoners for its service. The Parole Board, within its function of superintending the execution of the old sentences which had been interrupted by parole, thought parole had probably been violated, and if so the old sentences should be served in full as the parole statute expressly directs. This policy of the statute would not really be carried out by presently terminating the paroles and putting the old sentences into concurrent service with the new. It could only be done by postponing revocation of the paroles, indeed by postponing arrest and return to the penitentiary under the old sentences.
The Board accordingly issued warrants but suspended arrests. This I think was in their discretion under the circumstances and for the purpose disclosed. Section 6 of the Parole Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 719), expressly says that at the next meeting at the prison after the issue of a warrant (which originally might have been issued by the warden without knowledge of the Board) the Board shall be notified and if the prisoner has been returned to prison he shall have opportunity to appear before the Board, “and the said board may then or at any time in its discretion revoke the order and terminate such parole or modify the terms and conditions thereof.” Here is express discretionary authority given to postpone the revocation of the parole. If the Board thinks a prisoner ought to serve the old sentence in full, as the Parole Act says he shall, after he has finished serving a new sentence, it can by postponing revocation accomplish it. Where the prisoner has been arrested on a parole warrant and committed to the penitentiary on it alone, he is of course serving his old sentence and not to be prejudiced by the Board’s delay, but where he is not so committed, but on an independent charge, this does not follow. To prevent any contention that he is now serving the old sentence, the Board directed that arrest under the parole warrant to be postponed. I think this was within the Board’s discretion also.
Since the warrant has been issued and the prisoner is in the prison, though not by virtue of the parole warrant, it may be that he has a right under the literal words of section 6 to make a prompt showing before the Board on the question whether he has broken parole. He might otherwise lose his evidence. But that is not the question here. These prisoners have been turned loose as having served their old sentences while serving the new, contrary to the will and discretion of the Board, and that result it seems to me is not in accordance with law and justice.