Court Opinion

ID: 9447053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:24:02.242578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:52.842895
License: Public Domain

PARKINSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The Indiana Habitual Criminal Act provides that upon a third felony conviction one, having been previously twice convicted and imprisoned for a felony, “shall be deemed and taken to be an habitual criminal”. The Act mandates first the imposition of the penalty prescribed* by statute for such third felony and then; the imposition of a life sentence.
In 1933, the Supreme Court of Indiana, in the case of Kelley v. State, 204 Ind. 612, on page 623, 185 N.E. 453, on page 457, unequivocally decided that the punishment provided by the Act was simply a heavier penalty for the commission of the third felony and flatly stated:
“The punishment is for the new crime only.”
However, in so deciding the Court failed to take into account the plain wording of the Act which would, under such a construction, invalidate the Act because of the double sentencing for the third felony, i. e., the sentence prescribed by the statute for such third felony and another separate sentence of life imprisonment. This was signalized by Judge Gilkison in his dissenting opinion in Witte v. Dowd, 1951, 230 Ind. 485, 506, 102 N.E. 2d 630.
The question as to whether the Act violated the Thirteenth Amendment was before the Court in the Witte case. However, the majority never reached that question and it was not until the case of Smith v. State, 1957, 237 Ind. 532, 146 N.E.2d 86, that the Indiana Supreme Court passed on this question. In that case it apparently disavowed Kelley and squarely held that the Act imposes life imprisonment as punishment “for the status or condition of being an habitual criminal.” That is a correct interpretation of the Act and clearly invalidates it as being violative of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Although the Indiana Supreme Court in Smith holds that the Act does not violate the Thirteenth Amendment, it is of *298interest to note that the majority here does not rely thereon. The majority holds that the Act does not violate the Thirteenth Amendment because the life imprisonment imposed, after the imposition of the term penalty for the third felony, is “incident to a conviction of crime” or is “for the criminal conduct of committing a third felony with a record of two prior criminal convictions” and, therefore, is without the ban of the Thirteenth Amendment. In my opinion, that is not the law. The exception in the Thirteenth Amendment does not read punishment incident to crime nor does it read punishment for criminal conduct by commission of repetitive felonies for which the full statutory punishment has been inflicted. It clearly and succinctly states “as a punishment for crime”. We have no right to rewrite the Amendment and extend the provisions of the exception to include that which is clearly without its ambit.
The judgment of the committing court, which conforms to the Act,1 patently demonstrates that the petitioner is now serving a sentence of life imprisonment for the status of being an habitual criminal and not for a crime. It reads as follows:
“It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed by the court, that the defendant, Forrest Eugene Smith, is guilty of the offense of Vehicle Taking as charged in the affidavit in this cause, and that for the offense so committed by him against the peace and dignity of the State of Indiana, the said defendant, Forrest Eugene Smith be and is hereby committed to the Indiana State Prison to be there confined for a period of not less than one (1) nor more than ten (10) years, and that he be and is hereby disfranchised and rendered incapable of holding any office of trust or profit, for-a.period of five (5) years, and that the State of Indiana do have and recover of the defendant its costs paid out and expended.in the sum of $-.
“It is further ordered by the court that the defendant, Forrest Eugene Smith be and is hereby committed to the Indiana State Prison as a Habitual Criminal, to be there confined for a period of his natural life.”
The life sentence is for being “a Habitual Criminal”. It is not a sentence for the commission of the third felony of vehicle taking. Sentence therefor was separately imposed and has been served by the petitioner. The life sentence is imprisonment for a status. It is not “punishment for crime” and violates the Thirteenth Amendment.
In my opinion, the District Court erred in dismissing the petition. I would reverse.

. Metzger v. State, 1938, 214 lad. 113, 118, 13 N.E.2d 519.