Court Opinion

ID: 9576236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:22:06.790172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:53.488529
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Sutton
specially concurring:
This court has often held, based upon sound rules of construction, that it is not for the courts to determine the wisdom of valid constitutional or statutory provisions.
Within the past two years we have held that one convicted of a felony in another jurisdiction was not disqualified to hold public office. People v. Enlow (1957), 135 Colo. 249, 310 P. (2d) 539. In the Enlow case we were forced to our conclusion due to the absence of an express statute creating a disqualifying effect to a conviction and sentence by another jurisdiction. There we held that a sheriff convicted of a federal income tax violation was eligible and qualified to hold his office even though finally convicted in the federal courts.
In the present case Archambault was convicted under 21 U.S.C.A., §331-333, of misdemeanors; served two concurrent sentences and is on probation for a third offense. These misdemeanors involved the misbranding through indiscriminate dispensing of drugs without prescription. Archambault’s probation occurred under 18 U.S.C.A., §3651, which permits the trial court to suspend the imposition of sentence and place a defendant on probation for such period and upon such terms and conditions as the court deems best. Were he to be elected to the office he seeks, and thereafter violated the conditions of his probation, he would be subject to sentence and to immediate imprisonment without further trial and obviously could not fulfill the duties of a public office. It has been held that one on probation is not at large nor at liberty except within the circumscribed limitations per*226mitted by his probation and is in fact in custody and under the control of the court. Dillingham v. U. S., C.C.A., Fla. 1935, 76 F. 2d 35. Probation is a substitute for imprisonment; a conditional suspension of sentence. 24 C.J.S. 175, §1618.
Though the majority opinion here is correct because the constitution requires that one to be ineligible must be “in prison,” it is apparent that the constitution omits a provision to cover the type of situation which now confronts us, as it is apparent that the statutes failed to cover the Enlow situation. To me it is a mockery to have to hold that despite Archambault’s conviction of a crime involving the illegal dispensing of drugs, for which he has been granted probation rather than confinement, he is eligible to run for and hold public office before the period of his probation has expired.
My concurrence in the result here announced is not to be taken as a moral approval of our conclusion. I recognize that it is for the people of this state, and in proper cases the legislature, to determine whether it is desirable to perpetuate the constitutional and statutory provisions which permit the incongruous results which obtain here and which obtained in the Enlow case.
The result of the Enlow case and the holding of the present case where Archambault is still on probation, both fully qualify for the application of the ancient maxim of reductio ad absurdum.
I cannot believe that our conclusion is what the law abiding people of our state intended by the plain words they used in the constitution. However, since we are compelled to hold that such was the result of the words used, we should also point out that it is within their province to effect a change if they care to do so.