Court Opinion

ID: 9755825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:52:43.333907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:11.727563
License: Public Domain

Joslin, J.,
whom Paolino, J., joins, concurring. While I agree that the applicant’s admission to bail did not in the circumstances of this case render his petition for habeas corpus moot, I cannot agree, as the majority appear to hold, that a person once admitted to bail is necessarily and in all cases so restrained of his liberty as to be entitled to have the legality of his custody determined on habeas corpus. The great weight of authority1 is clearly to the contrary. And of the cases relied upon by the majority, although they speak of a person released on bail as being constructively in the custody of the law while on bail, only Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U. S. 234, 88 S. Ct. 1556, 20 L. Ed. 2d 554, is concerned with the question of mootness, and it is clearly distinguishable on its facts.
In that case, the supreme court held that proceedings for federal habeas will not be defeated if an applicant, prior to a final adjudication of his petition, is released by reason of the expiration of his sentence. Noting that the application for federal habeas corpus was first made in June 1963 and that final adjudication had not been completed by March 1967 when the applicant’s sentence expired, and further observing that the federal statute does not limit relief to discharge from physical custody, but permits the courts, in addition, to 'dispose of the matter as l'aw and justice re*361quire/ the court refused to penalize the applicant because of the inevitable delays in the judicial process. Then, relying upon the encompassing nature of the relief permitted under the federal statute and motivated by a desire to alleviate the applicant from the civil disabilities flowing from a conviction, it held that his petition could be adjudicated even though he was no longer in custody. That holding is certainly not authority for the majority’s conclusion that a person admitted to bail is restrained of his liberty and therefore entitled to the issuance of the writ if the constructive custody in which he is held is unlawful.
Leonard A. Kamaras, for petitioner.
Herbert F. DeSimone, Attorney General, Donald P. Ryan, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.
In this case, I dismiss the state’s claim of mootness, not because petitioner may be in constructive custody while at large on bail, but because G. L. 1956, §10-9-122 specifically provides for admission to bail pending judgment on a petition for habeas corpus. Here, the applicant was in the actual custody of the respondent warden when he sought leave to apply for the writ and his request to be admitted to bail was not acted upon favorably until after leave to file his petition for habeas corpus had been granted. In admitting him to bail, we acted under authority of §10-9-12, in the enactment of which the legislature clearly did not contemplate that action thereunder would defeat a petition for habeas corpus.
I would hold, therefore, that a petition for habeas corpus does not become moot because the applicant, pending hearing or adjudication, is admitted to bail as provided for by the statute.

The cases are collected in A.L.R. annotations. The earlier decisions are at 14 A.L.R. 344, and the more recent ones at 77 A.L.R.2d 1307.

The statute reads: “Until judgment be given the court may remand the-party, or may bail him to appear from day to day, or may commit him to the sheriff of the county, or place him under such other care and custody" as the circumstances of the ease may require.”