Court Opinion

ID: 9568862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:08:05.460157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:11:02.656164
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice.
I concur. The facts here shown do not amount to, nor even resemble, cruel and unusual punishment. If the petitioner had abided by the conditions of the parole which was granted for the purpose of letting him go to Minnesota for corrective surgery, it would have been carried out. It was his own misconduct in violating parole which interrupted his plans. It now comes with bad grace for him to expect the prison officials to indulge him further, and much more so for him to attempt to compel them to do so. If Prisoners having ailments were permitted to demand corrective treatment and dictate the terms and conditions under which it should be given, there is no way of telling to what unreasonable lengths such principle might be extended.
There being no cruelty, what should be done if it had existed, is not now before us. However, inasmuch as suggestions are made as to the course of procedure if such facts did exist, I add this: The Court could very properly order a discontinuance of the cruelty. The prisoner’s discharge would not be indicated unless that was the only way to relieve the situation. At most, the discharge should be conditioned upon failure to comply with the order to correct it. The remedy would not be to peremptorily grant the prisoner’s release. If such were the case, it is easy to imagine difficulties and abuses which might eventuate, including the release, and therefore the effective termination of the sentence of a prisoner, who might be under life sentence, because he had been subjected to mistreatment by some prison guard.
WORTHEN, J., concurs in the opinion of HENRIOD, J., and also in the first paragraph of the concurring opinion of CROCKETT, J.