Court Opinion

ID: 9765468
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:03:31.763644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:10.238675
License: Public Domain

John I. Purtle, Justice, dissenting. On April 21,1975, the appellee was sentenced to a term of eleven years in the Arkansas Department of Correction after her conviction for second degree murder. The document accompanying her to the Department of Correction on April 21,1975, indicated that she had a sentence of eleven years to serve. Subsequently, the Department received commitments reflecting a sentence of ten years on a robbery charge and three eight-year sentences on kidnapping charges from Prairie County. The robbery sentence has been served. The commitment papers indicated that the appellee entered pleas of guilty to the kidnapping charges in Prairie County on April 16, 1975. After the appellant had served the time for the original commitment, the Department refused to release her, basing its asserted right to hold her upon the subsequently-received commitments. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed, and the trial court granted a hearing on the motion. After the hearing, the trial court held that the appellee had not entered guilty pleas and that the court had no jurisdiction to pronounce the sentences. While the subsequent commitments indicated that Essie Mae Willock had entered guilty pleas in Prairie County on April 16, 1975, the record clearly shows and the trial court found that she was in the second day of a three-day trial, in Lonoke County, on the murder charge, when the guilty pleas were allegedly entered. At the hearing on the petition for habeas corpus, the trial court found that there was no record or other competent evidence existing to show that the petitioner had voluntarily entered a plea of guilty, nor any other plea in the circuit court of Prairie County, in cases No. CR 74-14, CR 74-15, and CR 74-16, to the charges of kidnapping. The court explicitly held that the petitioner did not enter any plea in Prairie County, guilty or otherwise, in the above-cited cases. After making his findings, the trial court concluded that “There cannot be a valid judgment of guilt or a subsequent valid commitment to the penitentiary.” It is somewhat of a mystery to me why the Director of the Department of Correction wants to hold a prisoner after receiving a valid court order indicating that the prisoner is entitled to be released. Such a hard-nosed position serves only to increase litigation and other costs. In the present case, the state of Kentucky is waiting to take charge of this prisoner. If the cost of keeping prisioners is so high and the space so scarce, the state should not be unnecessarily spending tax money trying to hold persons who have served their sentences. It seems to me that we will have sanctioned an injustice in the name of justice if we allow the Director to prevail in this case. I can see no valid state purpose nor any benefit to society in holding this person in prison after a court of competent jurisdiction has determined that she is entitled to be released.