Court Opinion

ID: 9461457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:14:53.75357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:04.228147
License: Public Domain

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The majority rules that when a prisoner serving a term of imprisonment appears before the sentencing court on another matter, that court has the power to resentence him, suspend execution of the first sentence, and order a distinct confinement for civil contempt based on an intervening refusal to testify in grand jury proceedings under a grant of immunity. In this case appellant had served eleven days of his sentence when the court interrupted its service and imposed a second, indeterminate sentence. The effect of the resentencing has been to postpone the expiration date of the first sentence for a period up to eighteen months. The majority opinion affirms the District Court’s power to effect such an interruption, and sustains the action as a necessary means of protecting the court’s integrity. I respectfully disagree with both conclusions. Moreover, it is pointed out that the trial court lost jurisdiction to modify the first sentence when appellant appealed that judgment to this court.
*678I. JUDICIAL POWER TO MODIFY SENTENCES OF IMPRISONMENT
The power of a court to interrupt one term of imprisonment in order to impose another sentence for civil contempt is a fertile field for judicial inquiry. A decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court, rendered almost sixty years ago, is the sole case on point. The majority opinion demonstrates that we are confronted with an open question, for it distinguishes the authority appellant advances, but offers none directly supporting its own position.1 Thus our responsibility is to be sensitive to traditional notions of the limits of judicial power to modify prison sentences and historical conceptions of prisoners’ rights. This sensitivity is lacking in the majority opinion; perusal of relevant cases and statutes leads me to an opposite conclusion.
Traditionally judicial power over prisoners and their sentences has been narrowly circumscribed. That commencement of execution of a sentence terminated a court’s power to modify its order was a common, if not undisputed, precept. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Foster, 122 Mass. 317, 23 Am.Rep. 326, 2 Am.Crim.Rep. 499 (1877); Brown v. Rice, 57 Me. 55, 2 Am.Rep. 11 (1869); Commonwealth v. Weymouth, 2 Allen (Mass.) 144, 79 Am.Dec. 776 (1861). Various decisions spoke of inherent limits on judicial power to suspend sentences, e. g., State v. Everett, 164 N.C. 399, 79 S.E. 274, 277 (N.C.1913); Re Jones, 35 Neb. 499, 53 N.W. 468 (1892); cf. Ex parte United States, 242 U.S. 27, 37 S.Ct. 72, 61 L.Ed. 129 (1916); of the dissipation of that power at the end of a term of court, Commonwealth v. Foster, supra; cf. Basset v. United States, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 38, 19 L.Ed. 548 (1870), or after a prisoner is committed, e. g., People v. Meservey, 76 Mich. 223, 42 N.W. 1133 (1889); Re Jones, supra; see generally Annotation, 44 A.L.R. 1203; and of the right of a convicted defendant to proceed with service of his sentence without undue delay, e. g., Ex parte Ervin, 266 P.2d 984 (Okl.Cr.App.1954); Marks v. Wentworth, 199 Mass. 44, 85 N.E. 81 (1908); People ex rel. Boenert v. Barnett, 202 Ill. 287, 67 N.E. 23 (1903). A sentencing court has been denied the power to modify the terms of a prisoner’s commitment in instances where the court sought to mitigate the effects of its judgment, as by reducing the period of confinement or decreeing a de facto parole. See State v. Hockett, 129 Mo.App. 639, 108 S.W. 599 (1907); Auldridge v. Womble, 157 Ga. 64, 120 S.E. 620 (1923); Commonwealth v. Mayloy, 57 Pa. 291 (1868); see generally Annotation, 141 A.L.R. 1225.
Cases which have addressed the distinct problem of interrupted or intermittent confinement have generally disallowed sentences fashioned toward that end. The language of State v. Buck, 120 Mo. 479, 25 S.W. 573, 578 (1894), is characteristic:
From the time of the conviction and sentence of defendant in the first case, he was, in legal contemplation, in a custody different from that of the circuit [trial] court, and could not be put upon his trial in another case until he had served out his time for which he had been sentenced in the first, or until the judgment and sentence in the first case had been set aside or re*679versed; until then it is to be deemed of full force and effect.
The Florida Supreme Court has held that “a convict has a right to pay his debt to society by one continuous period of imprisonment, to begin within a reasonable time after commitment.” Sinclair v. State, 99 So.2d 238, 240 (Dist.Ct.App.Fla.1957), citing Terrell v. Wiggins, 55 Fla. 596, 46 So. 727 (1908); State v. Horne, 52 Fla. 125, 42 So. 388 (1906). See also In re Jennings, 118 F. 479, 481 (C.C.E.D.Mo.1902). These cases involved attempts to interrupt sentences which were continuous when imposed in order to take action on distinct indictments. The effort to design sentences to be served by periodic installment or to be imposed with reference to specified contingencies has similarly been disapproved. The court in State v. Bigelow, 76 Ariz. 13, 258 P.2d 409 (1953), invalidated a sentence of ninety days’ confinement, to be served on certain days each week, on the ground that “[t]he superior courts of Arizona possess no inherent power to suspend the imposition or execution of sentences in any case.” An almost identical sentence was disallowed in Ex parte Taylor, 140 Cal.App. 102, 34 P.2d 1036 (1934), for the reason that the applicable probation statute provided the exclusive means of suspending sentences. See also Chase v. State, 479 P. 2d 337 (Ala. 1971); Ex parte Emmons, 96 Okl.Cr. 396, 256 P.2d 476 (1953); People v. Felker, 61 Mich. 110, 27 N.W. 869 (1886). That this principle has vitality in the federal sphere is evidenced by the unequivocal language of Lanier v. Williams, 361 F.Supp. 944, 947 (E.D.N.C.1973): “It is settled that a person, duly convicted of a criminal offense and upon whom a sentence of imprisonment is imposed, has a right to serve that sentence promptly and continuously, and he cannot be required to serve his sentence in installments.”
Finally, the sole case on point warrants attention. The Arkansas Supreme Court addressed the problem which confronts us in 1916 in Williams v. State, 125 Ark. 287, 188 S.W. 826. The court acknowledged that a convict could be brought into court and compelled to testify, and that he could be punished for his contumacy if he refused, but it specifically held that an intervening sentence to confinement which interrupted service of his initial term was an impermissible punishment for contempt. Because the facts in Williams and in this case are identical, the court’s reasoning bears scrutiny.
We pass ... to the more serious question whether or not the court had the power to set aside the former' judgment of conviction of felony, which judgment was then being enforced, for the purpose of imposing punishment for contempt and enforcing the judgment. While the question is not entirely free from doubt, we are of the opinion that the court possessed no such power. The Attorney General relies upon the established doctrine that all courts have continuing powers over their own judgments during the terms at which they are rendered; but while that power is an undoubted one, there are limitations upon the extent to which it may be exercised. . Here we have a case of the court attempting to set aside a judgment, not before the term of the sentence was begun, nor for the purpose of correcting any errors, but merely for the purpose of imposing another sentence during the period or the suspension of the judgment.
The law takes no account of parts of a term of sentence, which continues from beginning to end as one term. Therefore the court was without power to separate it into parts for the purpose of giving time to punish for other offenses.
125 Ark. at 288, 188 S.W. at 827 (emphasis added). The authority furnished by this solitary decision is scant, but the case is significant as a reflection of the contemporary view of judicial power to modify sentences. The majority’s perspective is that prison sentences have *680but one significant characteristic: duration. Williams, Lanier and the Florida cases, supra, all suggest the existence of another, perhaps equally important feature: continuity. Respect for the unity of a term of imprisonment does not deny a judge the power to punish for contempt a prisoner who refuses to testify. On the contrary, the Williams court explicitly notes that a “punishment by confinement in the county jail might have been imposed to run after the expiration of [the] other sentence.” But the premise of Williams — that power to effect delays in the service of a sentence passes once commitment occurs — is not consonant with the result the majority affirms here.
We should be mindful of, but not necessarily wedded to, this traditionally narrow conception of judicial power to modify the terms of a sentence of imprisonment which has been reduced to judgment. These early formulations have been succeeded by the passage of statutes and the adoption of rules governing the computation and correction of sentences to confinement. The majority in this case reads these more recent provisions without reference to their common law antecedents, and by its result the majority suggests that this decisional background has been rejected. On the contrary, precisely because Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35, providing for the correction and reduction of sentences, and 18 U.S.C. § 3568, defining the computation of time served under prison sentences, can be read in harmony with earlier decisions limiting a court’s power to alter sentences to imprisonment, that reading should be adopted.
II. RULE 35 AND MODIFICATION OF SENTENCE
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35 provides:

Correction or Reduction of Sentence

The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time and may correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner within the time provided herein for the reduction of sentence. The court may reduce a sentence within 120 days after the sentence is imposed, or within 120 days after receipt by the court of a mandate issued upon affirmance of the judgment or dismissal of the appeal, or within 120 days after entry of any order or judgment of the Supreme Court denying review of, or having the effect of upholding, a judgment of conviction. The court may also reduce a sentence upon revocation of probation as provided by law.
As amended Feb. 28, 1966, eff. July 1, 1966.
The purpose of this rule was set forth in a note accompanying promulgation of its antecedent, Rule 31(b), in 1946:
The limitation on the time for reduction of sentence is designed to extend the power of the judge to reduce a sentence imposed after a trial held near the end of a term, and on the other hand to put a limit on the reduction of sentence in a protracted or specially extended term of court or in the absence of fixed terms of court.
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Preliminary Draft 135 (1943). The time period for correction, increased from 60 to 120 days in 1966, fixed a court’s power to modify its sentences in the absence of the concept of “term of court.” The rule provided a new measure of a power which had always had a clearly defined boundary. A function, and presumably a purpose of this limitation on the power to reduce sentences, is the definition of a point beyond which a prisoner may rely on the terms of his sentence as it has been imposed. The court in Commonwealth v. Mayloy, supra, speaking not of the rule but of the common law limitation by court term, cited one salutary aspect of irreducible sentences: they prevent a prisoner from indulging in false hopes of an early pardon. Whatever the ancillary purposes of the limitation may be, because it will almost never *681serve the interests of a prisoner, and because it may well impede a trial court’s search for the fairest result in a given case, its codification in Rule 35 must in large part be premised on the notion that at some point a sentencing court must relinquish power over a sentence it has imposed. This persistent concept of limited power to modify sentences, coupled with the adoption of specific rules to permit such modification in certain circumstances, carries a clear implication which somehow escapes the majority: If specific authority is required for modification which reduces a prisoner’s sentence, it must certainly be necessary for other substantial variations in the terms of a sentence.
III. 18 U.S.C. § 3568
18 U.S.C. § 3568 (1970) provides:
The sentence of imprisonment of any person convicted of an offense shall commence to run from the date on which such person is received at the penitentiary, reformatory, or jail for service of such sentence. The Attorney General shall give any such person credit toward service of his sentence for any days spent in custody in connection with the offense or acts for which sentence was imposed.
No sentence shall prescribe any other method of computing the term.
Perusal of the legislative history behind this section has convinced the majority that it is inapposite to Liddy’s situation. They complain that appellant is giving the statute a literal interpretation; but from 2 Dallas (1781) to the present day there has been no breach in the requirement that laws relating to criminal conduct should generally be strictly construed. Respublica v. Weidle, 2 Dall. 88 (Pa.Sup.Ct.1781); United States v. Baltimore & O. S. W. R. Co., 222 U.S. 8, 13, 32 S.Ct. 6, 56 L.Ed. 68 (1911); United States v. Halseth, 342 U.S. 277, 280, 72 S.Ct. 275, 96 L.Ed. 308 (1952). The majority also assert that their conclusion is supported by the fact that the statute is designed, in the words of the House and Senate Reports, to “produce certainty and prevent juggling with sentences in the way described”. The reports speak specifically of irregular methods of fixing the starting date of a prison term, and thus the section’s closing sentence, excluding all conflicting methods of computing time served, literally pertains only to the fixing of starting dates for sentences.
Read more broadly, the statute is a manifestation of a legislative purpose that individuals sentenced to imprisonment shall not be denied the opportunity to commence service of their terms by administrative delay or preliminary confinement. To this end it is in accord with considerable case law ordering prompt delivery to prison authorities of one sentenced to confinement, see, e. g., O’Neil v. State, 134 Ala. 189, 32 So. 667 (1902); State v. Couture, 156 Me. 231, 163 A.2d 646 (1960); Ex parte Ervin, 266 P.2d 984 (Okl.Cr.App.1954), and prohibiting unnecessary delay in the imposition of sentence, e. g., Juarez-Casares v. United States, 496 F.2d 190, 192 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Grabina, 309 F.2d 783, 786 (2d Cir. 1962); People ex rel. Harty v. Fay, 10 N.Y.2d 374, 223 N.Y.S.2d 468, 179 N.E.2d 483 (1961); People v. Kennedy, 58 Mich. 372, 25 N.W. 318 (1885). The preponderance of these cases share one of the premises2 of that portion of section 3568 which gives credit for preliminary incarceration: that an individual convicted of a crime should be able to pay the penalty promptly. Yet the majority finds that this statute, which prohibits any unnecessary hiatus between sentencing and the start of service, is irrelevant to the issue of judicial power to effect an even more disruptive delay once service of *682sentence has already commenced. If juggling of sentences is to be prohibited before commitment occurs, it is even more offensive once a term of imprisonment has begun. To ascribe to Congress the intent to proscribe juggling tactics before service of a sentence commences, but not the intent to prohibit the same practices after the sentence has begun to run, is to reduce its legislation to a virtual nullity.
As the majority states,3 one of the objectives of the legislation was to “remove confusion” in calculating the time a prisoner has served on his sentence.4 Congress indicated that section 3568 was intended, inter alia, to “produce certainty and prevent juggling with sentences in the way described” 5 — announcing spurious dates of commitment in order to advance the date of parole eligibility or augment good conduct deductions — but Congress also noted that “various other instances of confusion” had prompted passage of the statute.6 It is plain that indefinite suspension of a sentence already commenced (with an 18-month maximum) will engender similar confusion: each situation causes uncertainty as to parole and good conduct credit for a period of non-confinement on the sentence originally adjudged. In fact interruption of a sentence for an indefinite period might produce greater confusion than juggling the starting date, for the actual terms of the sentence would not be fully determinable from its provisions.
IV. THE CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATION FOR DENYING INTERRUPTION OF SERVICE
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment specifically addresses and proscribes the practice of subjecting an individual to two different trials for a single crime.7
* * * nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; * *
The Supreme Court has extrapolated from this language a prohibition against double punishment, on the theory that the imposition of two penalties for the same offense poses as great a threat to a defendant as the convening of two trials. Ex parte Lange, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 163, 21 L.Ed. 872 (1874); see also Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 462, 67 S.Ct. 374, 91 L.Ed. 422 (1947); Patton v. State of North Carolina, 381 F.2d 636, 643-645 (4th Cir. 1967). And the Court has developed the principle that resentencing which augments a sentence previously imposed and partially suffered also violates the Double Jeopardy Clause. United States v. Benz, 282 U.S. 304, 51 S.Ct. 113, 75 L.Ed. 354 (1931); Ex parte Lange, supra; see also Wilson v. Bell, 137 F.2d 716, 720 (6th Cir. 1943); Rowley v. Welch, 72 App.D.C. 351, 114 F.2d 499 (1940). Thus if interruption of appellant’s sentence and his intervening incarceration serve to increase the penalty he must suffer for his first conviction, the action is constitutionally invalid.
No reported decision has determined whether an interruption in the service of a sentence constitutes an increased punishment. But factors cited as unnecessarily onerous incidents of the criminal process in other contexts are relevant to this determination. The Supreme Court has spoken of the “cloud of anxiety” which hangs over an individual between indictment and trial. Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 532, 533, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), citing United States v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116, 120, 86 S.Ct. 773, *68315 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966); Smith v. Hooey, 393 U.S. 374, 377-378, 89 S.Ct. 575, 21 L.Ed.2d 607 (1969); Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 221-222, 87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1 (1967). The anxiety which accompanies an unserved prison sentence is no less burdensome. Until his term is completed, a prisoner is subject to at least the same suspicion, hostility and stigma which a defendant released on bail experiences. Of course troubled soul-searching is a salutary and desirable aspect of imprisonment, but it should be an incident of confinement for the offense, not an incremental penalty incident to a delay in the execution of the sentence for an indeterminate period. The majority’s single-minded concern with the duration of appellant’s sentence obscures the fact that he must now wait eighteen months more before that sentence expires. Throughout the hiatus in his term he will suffer the same anxiety and bear the same stigma he experienced when he was confined under his original sentence, and which he will experience when he begins to serve it once again. Thus, by extending the expiration date of. the original sentence, by interrupting its service for 18 months, punishment has been imposed on him which was not part of the trial court’s first sentence. Time is the stuff that life is made of and the additional 18 months of anxiety, anguish and delay is increased punishment.
Postponement of the expiration date of a sentence, if effected by a short delay in the commencement of service, is not inherently prejudicial and does not ordinarily justify reduction of the term or credit for the delay. See generally Anderson v. Corall, 263 U.S. 193, 196, 44 S.Ct. 43, 68 L.Ed. 247 (1923); Pinkerton v. Steele, 181 F.2d 536 (8th Cir. 1950); Woods v. Steiner, 207 F.Supp. 945, 953 (D.Md.1962); United States ex rel. Binion v. United States Marshal for the District of Nevada, 188 F.Supp. 905, 908 (D.Nev.1960). Like any statement of administrative latitude, this rule has exceptions; substantial and unjustified delay in the execution of a sentence has often been held to preclude its enforcement or warrant reduction in its terms. See, e. g., Smith v. Swope, 91 F.2d 260, 262 (9th Cir. 1937) (“The least to which a prisoner is entitled is the execution of the sentence to whose judgment he is duly subject.”); State ex rel. Shotkin v. Buchanan, 149 So.2d 574 (Dist.Ct.App.Fla.1963); Ex parte Bugg, 163 Mo.App. 44, 145 S.W. 831 (1912). Mitigation of the prejudicial effects of precommitment delay was one of the essential purposes behind passage of the 1966 amendment to 18 U.S.C. § 3568.8 If undue delay in the commencement of service can be an incremental penalty, it follows a fortiori that delay caused by interruption of service can have the same effect. To hold that a sentence need not be continuous is to admit the possibility of manifold interruptions compounding a prisoner’s anxiety, thwarting _ efforts at rehabilitation, and postponing the expiration date of the sentence indefinitely. This sort of juggling of terms is even more insidious than the abuses to which the majority finds section 3568 was addressed. Because in almost every foreseeable circumstance an interrupted sentence will be perceptibly more severe, interruption violates the Double Jeopardy Clause under the principles laid down in Benz and Lange, supra.
This constitutional prohibition against interruption of sentences may in turn yield exceptions. The majority cites the established “fault of the prisoner” excep*684tion as justification for interrupting appellant’s term, but a closer analysis of relevant case law indicates that it is inapplicable to this situation. The leading decision is McDonald v. Lee,9 where the Fifth Circuit held:
At common law a prisoner has a right to serve his sentence continuously, and cannot be required to serve it in installments, but even at common law a continuous sentence may be interrupted by some, fault of the prisoner.
The majority reasons that appellant’s “intentional acts” place him in a position similar to that of an escapee or a parolee who commits offenses which lead to revocation of his parole. Even those do not authorize a sentencing court to change the sentence originally imposed on the initial offense.10 But appellant’s fault is of a different order from an escape or parole violation. His refusal to testify before the grand jury does not come within the McDonald v. Lee exception because it is not the fault of a prisoner qua prisoner; rather, it is an act totally extraneous to his imprisonment. In contrast to the other transgressions cited by the majority, appellant’s refusal to testify does not evince any intent to avoid or terminate service of his sentence. Moreover, his silence before the grand jury is an “intentional act” only in an oblique and technical sense. Appellant displayed every intention of serving his term promptly and continuously; any argument that he wilfully interrupted his sentence is sophistical.
We need not determine at this juncture whether circumstances may ever arise which justify interruption of a prison term. It might be argued that the constitutional invalidity of interrupted sentences does not admit exceptions. Because the prisoner bears sole responsibility for the interruption in the situations cited by the majority — escape and parole violation — the constitutional issue is not raised. In circumstances requiring immediate suspension of one sentence and imposition of a new penalty — for example, commission of a capital offense in prison; of a major offense by one in jail for a misdemeanor; or of a crime requiring adult treatment, by one incarcerated under the Youth Corrections Act — the remainder of the initial sentence would probably be vacated or served concurrently. On the other hand there may be extreme situations which justify exceptions to this general rule. In this case, however, we need only rule that the District Court had no justifiable reason to interrupt appellant’s sentence.
V. THE DISTRICT COURT’S ALTERNATIVES
The District Court and the majority both justify interruption of appellant’s sentence on the ground that it is essential to give effect to the coercive sanction of civil contempt. The majority proceeds to discount the alternatives of criminal contempt and daily fines. But the District Court in fact availed itself of one of several alternative methods *685that might have been used to induce appellant to testify when it imposed sentence on Hunt and the four former Cuban residents (hereafter referred to as the Cubans).
On the day appellant was sentenced his five co-defendants (Hunt and the four Cubans) received maximum terms of imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 4208(b) pending the completion of a Bureau of Prisons study of each of the five men under that statute, to be used in arriving at a final disposition of each case. The court noted that in each instance it could either affirm the maximum sentence, reduce it, or place the defendant on probation. Almost in the same breath the court encouraged each man to “give serious consideration to lending [his] full cooperation to investigating authorities.” 11 The five then listened to an extensive quotation from a statement made by Judge Ferguson of the Central District of California as he accepted guilty pleas and imposed sentences in a case involving fraud and corruption in the operation of United States military clubs in Europe, Vietnam and the United States.
I am making no promise of leniency — but the sentence I impose will depend primarily on whether or not you cooperate with the permanent subcommittee on investigation of the United States Senate and if you are asked to testify and give evidence before that permanent subcommittee and if you testify openly and completely, regardless of what the implications are to yourself or to anyone else or to the system so that the branch of the Government which can take corrective action of the system is able to take action on the system so that this activity simply does not occur again, then I will take that into consideration because I want to see something beneficial to the Government come out of these proceedings.12
The trial court then spoke directly to the five defendants.
For these reasons I recommend your full cooperation with the Grand Jury and the Senate Select Committee. You must understand that I hold out no promise or hopes of any kind to you in this matter but I do say that should you decide to speak freely I would have to weigh that factor in appraising what sentence will be finally imposed in this case.13
Liddy was in court throughout this sentencing of Hunt and the Cubans. The court’s import was plain: these five co-defendants of appellant would likely serve longer sentences for future refusals to testify. Unquestionably the trial court’s remarks in sentencing the five co-defendants constituted the same order of coercion as was imposed upon appellant by the civil contempt sanction.
The trial court could have used the same sentencing technique on appellant and it had other alternative means of impelling appellant to purge himself without interrupting his sentence. The court could have suspended the imposition of a consecutive sentence and placed appellant on probation for eighteen months or some lesser period conditioned on appellant’s cooperation. Or it could have imposed an eighteen-month consecutive sentence and announced that it would consider reduction of the sentence within the time limits authorized by Rule 35. Finally, the trial court could simply have waited until after the defendant had appeared before the grand jury before it imposed sentence. In effect the court followed this last approach when it sentenced appellant’s co-defendants by indicating that the decision to testify freely would be a prime basis for determination of sentences upon completion of the Bureau of Prisons study. Although those alternative sentencing techniques might have been equally un*686successful, they would have had the same coercive effect as confinement for civil contempt, and because they would not have interrupted appellant’s service of his sentence, they should have been favored. If circumstances do exist which justify interruption of a sentence, this case clearly does not present them.
VI. SUMMARY
In justifying the District Court’s action the majority has embraced an unreasonably narrow conception of criminal punishment. The continuity of a term of imprisonment may be as significant as its duration. Common sense dictates that a one-year sentence cannot be subdivided and required to be served a single day each year, though the effect would be to reduce the number of days spent in confinement. This principle of the unity of a prison sentence is not born only of reasonableness, but has roots in decisional, statutory and constitutional law which make it binding on this court. We have ample evidence of a legislative and judicial commitment that a convicted defendant shall be allowed to pay his debt promptly and continuously, in order that he not be subjected to a penalty greater than that authorized by statute. Before service of a sentence can legitimately be interrupted, some more convincing showing of necessity must be made than the one advanced here.
VII. THE PENDENCY OF APPEAL
While the majority may disagree with the preceding analysis of judicial power to interrupt sentences, prior decisions of this court, of other circuits, and of the Supreme Court all indicate that the District Court lacked jurisdiction to modify appellant’s sentence once he lodged his appeal with this court.
The final judgment in a criminal case is the sentence. Berman v. United States, 302 U.S. 211, 212, 58 S.Ct. 164, 82 L.Ed. 204 (1937); Hill v. Wampler, 298 U.S. 460, 464, 56 S.Ct. 760, 80 L.Ed. 1283 (1936); Miller v. Aderhold, 288 U.S. 206, 210, 53 S.Ct. 325, 288 U.S. 206 (1933). Thus appeal of the judgment is appeal of the sentence imposed. Once appeal is properly taken, the District Court is without jurisdiction during its pendency to modify the judgment by resentencing the prisoner. Berman v. United States, 302 U.S. at 214, 58 S.Ct. 164; Keyser v. Farr, 105 U.S. 265, 266, 26 L.Ed. 1025 (1882). A unanimous panel of this court has held that a “District Court . was without authority to vacate the general sentence previously imposed” once notice of appeal was filed, United States v. Mack, 151 U.S.App.D.C. 162, 169, 466 F.2d 333, 340 (1972).14 There the pend-ency of appeal was held to terminate the District Court’s power to correct an illegal general sentence in the face of explicit language in Rule 35 allowing such *687correction “at any time,” on the theory that the rule extended the power of the trial court beyond the expiration of the term during which sentence was imposed, but could not sustain that power once jurisdiction passed to the appellate court.15 Cf. Smith v. Pollin, 90 U.S.App.D.C. 178, 180, 194 F.2d 349, 350 (1952). The Second Circuit has similarly held that a trial court is without power to change a sentence once appeal is perfected, United States v. Grabina, 309 F.2d 783, 785 (1962), and has emphasized that appeal deprives the trial court of “jurisdiction” and “power” to make “further orders in the appealed cause” whether the intended modification be the granting of probation or the reduction or correction of sentence, United States v. Ellenbogen, 390 F.2d 537, 542 (1968). See also United States v. Habib, 72 F.2d 271 (2d Cir. 1934); Spirou v. United States, 24 F.2d 796 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 277 U.S. 596, 48 S.Ct. 559, 72 L.Ed. 1006 (1928); United States v. Tuffanelli, 138 F.2d 981, 983 (7th Cir. 1943) (“the trial court on appeal lost all jurisdiction of the case, and any power or authority to resentence must have been by virtue of [an appellate court] mandate.”).'
It remains only to apply this jurisdictional principle to the facts of appellant’s case. He was sentenced on March 23, 1973, and filed a notice of appeal on March 26, well within the ten-day period prescribed by appellate rule 4.16 The *688same day he appealed his conviction appellant was called before the grand jury, and that same day the government sought immunity for his testimony under 18 U.S.C. §§ 6001-6003. At a hearing on March 30, the trial judge granted the government’s motion, and appellant persisted in his refusal to testify. On April 3, 1973, the trial court granted a government motion that appellant be adjudged in civil contempt for his refusal to testify. The court sua sponte ordered that execution of appellant’s prison sentence be held in abeyance during his confinement for contempt in the District of Columbia jail.17 At that time the case was in the Court of Appeals and the trial court was without jurisdiction over appellant’s sentence and wholly powerless to suspend its execution.
In part III of its opinion, “Pendency of Appeal,” the majority asserts that this claim of lack of jurisdiction in the trial court is an absolutist concept — but jurisdiction is like that. It can be absolute or nonexistent. Significantly, the majority does not cite any authority to support its claim that trial court jurisdiction existed.18 And the opinion wholly ignores the fact that we are concerned not with policy but with the rule stated in Berman v. United States, supra, 302 U.S. at 214, 58 S.Ct. 164, that “the District Court [is] without jurisdiction during the pendency of [an] appeal to modify its judgment by resentencing the prisoner. Draper v. Davis, 102 U.S. 370, 371, [26 L.Ed. 121]; Keyser v. Farr, 105 U.S. 265, 266 [26 L.Ed. 1025]; Spirou v. United States, 24 F.2d 796, 797; United States v. Radice, 40 F.2d 445, 446; United States v. Habib, 72 F.2d 271.”
In United States v. Mack, supra, in an opinion written by Chief Judge Sobeloff of the Fourth Circuit, with Chief Judge Bazelon and Judge Leventhal participating, this court held that “the District Court once [appellant] filed his notice of appeal, was without authority to vacate the general sentence previously imposed.” 466 F.2d at 340. That decision held that the noting of appeal divested the District Court of jurisdiction to correct an illegal sentence; a fortiori a trial court has no jurisdiction or power to change a valid sentence.
Appellant’s service of his sentence is without legal effect. Because he has remained incarcerated since his initial commitment, he is entitled to full credit on that first sentence for all time served, and the second sentence is a nullity insofar as it interrupts the first sentence.19

. Despite the majority’s conviction that cases such as Ex parte Lange, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 163, 21 L.Ed. 872 (1873), and United States v. Murray, 275 U.S. 347, 48 S.Ct. 146, 72 L.Ed. 309 (1928), are distinguishable from and thus inapposite to this case, it is difficult to distinguish away language as explicit as that used by Judge Sanborn in Egan v. United States, 268 F.2d 820, 823 (8th Cir. 1959):
While a court may correct an illegal sentence at any time (Rule 35 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A.), the beginning of the service of the sentence in a criminal case ends the power of the court to change it. Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, 85 U.S. 163, 21 L.Ed. 872; United States v. Murray, 275 U.S. 347, 358, 48 S.Ct. 146, 72 L.Ed. 309. See and compare, Phillips v. United States, 8 Cir., 212 F.2d 327, 335, and Affronti v. United States, 350 U.S. 79, 83, 76 S.Ct. 171, 100 L.Ed. 62.
Whatever its validity when first pronounced, a principle so often repeated and followed by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, cannot be ignored.

. The statute has another premise which is equally germane to this case: once sentence is imposed, incarceration should be credited toward service of the sentence.

. Majority Op. at 674.

. S.Rep.No.803, 72nd Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1932); H.R.Rep.No.960, 72nd Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1932).

. Id.

. Id.

. See Price v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 90 S.Ct. 1757, 26 L.Ed.2d 300 (1970); Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970); Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957).

. The Second Circuit outlined the purpose of ■ the amendment in Siegel v. United States, 436 F.2d 92 (1970):
The legislative history of this Amendment clearly reveals that it was intended to confer credit for time spent in federal custody by a prisoner to prevent a judge from frustrating the will of Congress by adding a comparable period to that served while awaiting sentence to the sentence itself; . . . . Section 3568 merely allows credit for all of the time that a prisoner is deprived of while held in custody in connection with the “offenses or acts” on which he was'sentenced.
436 F.2d at 95.

. 217 F.2d 619, 623 (5th Cir. 1954), vacated as moot, 349 U.S. 948, 75 S.Ct. 893, 99 L.Ed. 1274 (1955). See also White v. Pearlman, 42 F.2d 788, 789 (10th Cir. 1930), where the court asserted:
A prisoner has some rights. A sentence of five years means a continuous sentence, unless interrupted by escape, violation of parole, or some fault of the prisoner, and he cannot be required to serve it in installments. Certainly a prisoner should have his chance to re-establish himself and live down his past.

. That sentence remains unchanged and all that results is the prison authorities apply the well established law that the period of escape is not credited as time served. An escaped prisoner, or one who breached his parole, is not brought back to the sentencing court for any action with respect to his original sentence. He may be indicted and tried for escape but the locale of such trial would be determined by the location of the prison. This may or may not be within the jurisdiction of the court imposing the original sentence and even if it were, a different judge might preside at such trial. For breach of parole, the Board of Parole acts.

. Sentencing transcript at 36.

. Id. at 39.

. Id. at 40.

. In Mack this court used what might be regarded as somewhat tentative language: “As a general rule, a district court’s authority to take further action in a case is severely limited by the noting of an appeal.” The paucity of exceptions to this rule is significant. The authority the Mack court cited for the proposition, “9 J. Moore, Federal Practice, 11 203.11 at 734-40, and cases cited therein,” includes only one criminal citation, Euziere v. United States, 266 F.2d 88 (10th Cir. 1959), vacated on other grounds, 364 U.S. 282, 80 S.Ct. 1615, 4 L.Ed.2d 1720 (1960). That case states “all of the cases hold that an appeal divests the trial court of jurisdiction over the case” and requires only that a valid appeal be taken from an appealable order before trial court jurisdiction is terminated. 266 F.2d at 91. Neither the text in Moore nor any of its citations suggest a relevant exception to the rule that noting of an appeal ends the power of the district court over its judgment; on the contrary, all of the authority supports the general principle that “jurisdiction with respect to any matters involved in the appeal” passes immediately to the court of appeals, Moore, supra at 734.
Relying on the statement that District Court jurisdiction is “severely limited,” but not concluded, by the noting of an appeal, the court in Mack suggested that an exception might be created, as for the correction of an illegal sentence, a procedure specifically allowed by the language of Rule 35. The fact that the court chose not to recognize such an exception argues in favor of continued strict adherence to the general rule, in the interest of “an orderly appellate process.” 466 F.2d at 340.

. This court’s decision in Womack v. United States, 129 U.S.App.D.C. 427, 395 F.2d 630 (1968), is not to the contrary. That case holds that “there is no jurisdictional bar to the District Court’s entertaining a Section 2255 motion during the pendency of a direct appeal,” but indicates that “[w]here the District Judge concludes that the motion is or may be appropriate, he may follow the procedure outlined in Smith v. Pollin,” supra, that is, move the Court of Appeals for a remand. In fact, because Womack requires “extraordinary circumstances” even for this procedure, it reinforces the proposition that jurisdiction and plenary power rest in the appellate court once appeal is noted.

. Appellant’s Notice of Appeal is reproduced below:
NOTICE OF APPEAL
[Filed Mar 26, 1973, James F. Davey, Clerk]
Name and address of appellant
George Gordon Liddy
9310Ivanhoe Road
Oxen [sic] Hill, Maryland
Name and address of appellant’s attorney
Peter L. Maroulis Thomas A. Kennelly
11 Cannon Street 1819 H Street, N.W.
Poughkeepsie, New York Washington, D.C.
Offense
18 U.S.C. Sec. 371; 22 D.C.Code, Sec. 1801(b) (2 counts); 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2511 (3 counts).
Concise statement of judgment or order, giving date, and any statement Judgment of the U. S. District Court, District of Columbia, per Chief Judge John J. Sirica, dated and filed March 23, 1973. Sentence: Count 1, 20 mos-5 yrs & $10,000 fine; Count 2, 5 yrs-15 yrs; Count 3, 5 yrs-15 yrs; Count 4, 20 mos-5 yrs & $10,000 fine; Count 5, 20 mos-5 yrs & $10,000 fine; Count 8, 20 mos-5 yrs & $10,000 fine. Counts 1, 2 and 3 concurrent with each other; Counts 4, 5 and 8 concurrent with each other and consecutive to Counts 1, 2 and 3.
*688Name of institution where now confined, if not on bail District of Columbia Jail
I, the above-named appellant, hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from the above-stated judgment.
Date: March 26, 1973
/s/ Peter L. Maroulis
Attorney for Appellant
/s/ Thomas A. Kennedy
Attorney for Appellant

. To give meaning and coercive impact to the Court’s contempt powers in the interest of protecting the Court’s integrity, the Court here finds it necessary to hold in abeyance the execution of Mr. Liddy’s sentence under the indictment pending his confinement for contempt.
Defendant’s Appendix 22-23.

. See footnote 34 of majority opinion supra.

. The majority opinion also states, “If a defendant were to escape confinement . while his appeal was pending, it is difficult to see any reason why an appeals court should not continue to determine the appeal.” Majority opinion at 677. Confronted with that situation, the Supreme Court has dismissed *689the appeal. Molinaro v. New Jersey, 396 U.S. 365, 366, 90 S.Ct. 498, 24 L.Ed.2d 586 (1970); Bohanan v. Nebraska, 125 U.S. 692, 8 S.Ct. 1390, 30 L.Ed. 71 (1887); Smith v. United States, 94 U.S. 97, 24 L.Ed. 32 (1876). These decisions indicate that, contrary to the majority’s position, “changes in the continuity of a sentence” do in fact “impinge upon the appellate function.” But the relevancy of the majority’s argument is remote at best: we are not concerned here with the practicality of proceeding with an appeal once an unavoidable or legitimate interruption of sentence has occurred, but rather with the validity of trial court action causing that interruption.
As for the majority’s other example of a discontinuity of sentence, the decision of the Parole Board to place a prisoner on parole while his appeal is pending is completely irrelevant to any issue presented here. Such power is implicit in every prison sentence and the exercise of that power by the Board of Parole does not change the sentence.