Court Opinion

ID: 9549377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:17:13.685337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:13.396351
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the judgment discharging the writ and remanding the prisoner to custody .
I feel, however, that the 1941 amendment to section 669 of the Penal Code, which provides that “if the punishment for any of said crimes is expressly prescribed to be life imprisonment, then the terms of imprisonment on the other convictions, whether prior or subsequent, shall be merged and run concurrently with such life term,” is not only wise, but is a provision containing good, common sense, and that said section should be interpreted as having this meaning even before the 1941 amendment.
Even the most hardened criminal has but one life. As this court said in People v. McNabb, 3 Cal.2d 441 [45 P.2d 334] : ‘ ‘ The lawmakers had no thought of attempting to impose additional time to the longest possible span of time or supplementing the infinite with the finite. The whole is greater than any of its parts. The proposition contended for reduces itself *884to an absurdity. The lawmakers had no thought of a life sentence when the section was adopted. It was dealing with consecutive terms of imprisonment for a term of years.” (People v. Jones, 6 Cal.2d 554 [59 P.2d 89]).
The argument set forth in the majority opinion by way of illustration as to the possible effect of the amendment is not well put—it defeats its proponents. To say that one sentenced to a life term and who is later paroled may commit as many crimes as he chooses with impunity so far as the law is concerned is absurd. A parolee may still be under the supervision of the proper authorities and may be considered as still serving his sentence and yet be free of the bars and walls behind which he was confined. If he does not lead the life of a useful, law-abiding citizen while on parole, but breaks other laws, and commits other crimes, and is convicted of them, his parole is revoked and he is once again imprisoned. (Pen. Code, §§ 3040 to 3065 incl.) A prisoner serving a life sentence is not entitled to credits for good behavior, so his imprisonment cannot be shortened in that way. A life sentence means just that unless the prisoner is released through parole, commutation or pardon. In this connection it must be noted that the prisoner is not entitled to parole, commutation or pardon as a matter of right. All three are matters of “grace” and are discretionary. The governor of this state may pardon a prisoner or commute his sentence to a lesser one, and the Adult Authority may grant him a parole. Both the governor and the Adult Authority represent the People of this state, and it must be assumed that as representatives of the People, the duty of protecting the public will be discharged. A prisoner whose record shows that he was convicted of other crimes while “out on parole” would, most probably, be considered an unlikely subject for either parole, commutation, or pardon.
It appears to me quite unreasonable to say that the courts can do “nothing by way of punishing” a parolee for depredations he had committed while at large. If such a prisoner is convicted of the lesser crimes, and his parole is revoked, and he is once again remanded to prison to serve his life term out, it would seem that he is sufficiently punished, and that adding a term of years to extend beyond his death is a sentence which the courts of this state, while they may impose it, have no jurisdiction to enforce. The law should not countenance such a useless procedure.