Court Opinion

ID: 9482859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:03:00.271135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:14.864966
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but I would decide the case on the basis of state law. I do not believe that 18 U.S.C. § 3568 demands the rigid interpretation set forth by the majority.
The fundamental issue is, of course, what was the total sentence imposed on Thomas. If the state sentence was made concurrent to the previously imposed federal sentence, either expressly or by operation of state law, then a low-level administrative decision about where to first incarcerate Thomas should not be permitted to override the state court’s decision. The federal statute upon which the majority bases its decision is not so unyielding as to not allow exceptions in similar situations. See, e.g., Gomori v. Arnold, 533 F.2d 871 (3rd Cir.1976) (referring to practice by which the Attorney General may, upon a federal court’s recommendation, order that a federal sentence be served at the state institution at which the defendant is then serving a state sentence); see also Ange v. Paderick, 521 F.2d 1066 (4th Cir.1975) (same).1 Had Thomas’s state sentence been made expressly concurrent, and, if by happenstance he had been sent first to federal prison, he would have had to serve at least eight fewer years behind bars.
I concur in the judgment, however, because it is clear that at the time Thomas was sentenced in state court, Pennsylvania law presumed, in view of the state court’s silence, that the state sentence would be consecutive to a previously imposed sentence by a different sovereign. See Commonwealth ex rel. Pitts v. Myers, 196 Pa.Super. 277, 175 A.2d 331 (1961) (holding that the presumption of concurrency applies only in the case of a subsequently imposed sentence by the same court to the same prison); see also Commonwealth v. Pfeiffer, 396 Pa.Super. 641, 579 A.2d 897 (1990) (construing the current law, Pa. R.Crim.P., Rule 1406, 42 Pa.C.S.A., to the same effect). I join the judgment of the court, but only because the law of Pennsyl*365vania dictates the result. Were it otherwise, I would hold that 18 U.S.C. § 3568 would admit of a result that would effectuate the intent of the state court.2

. I seriously doubt that the state sentencing judge was made aware of the federal sentence earlier imposed upon Thomas. The record is silent concerning this point. Thomas’s lawyer at the state sentencing hearing pointed out to the court that he had "no communication” at all with his client (though he had spoken to Thomas’s parents), and, further, that Thomas’s mental state was "unbalanced.” An insanity defense was presented at his state trial, but it did not go to the jury. It is not unlikely that Thomas’s state court lawyer was unaware of the federal sentences.

. At oral argument, counsel for the government conceded that had Thomas been found not guilty of the state charges, the federal sentence would have been given a beginning date as of the date of the federal detainer first lodged against him.