Court Opinion

ID: 9702567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:17:08.157965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:38.889336
License: Public Domain

Grimes, J.,
dissenting: With all due respect I think the court has reached an incorrect and unfortunate result. Only last year we took a step forward by holding that the power of the court to revise a sentence extended beyond the term at which it was imposed. State v. Thomson, 110 N.H. 190, 263 A.2d 675 (1970). United State v. Benz, 282 U.S. 304, fully supports my position that the fact that the petitioner has served part of his sentence does not alter that power.
The court is concerned that action on a motion such as this would be based on events which have taken place since the original sentence. This however, is usually the only basis upon which a continuing decree of the court can be modified i.e., changed circumstances.
The exercise of this power by the courts is not an interference with the executive branch. It is the court’s order in the form of a minimum sentence which prevented the parole board from considering petitioner for parole.
Forty years ago Justice Sutherland correctly stated the law when he said in United States v. Benz, supra at 311: “ We find nothing *323in the suggestion that the action of the district court in reducing the punishment after the prisoner had served a part of the imprisonment originally imposed was a usurpation of the pardoning power of the executive. The judicial power and the executive power over sentences are readily distinguishable. To render judg - ment is a judicial function. To carry the judgment into effect is an executive function. To cut short a sentence by an act of clemency is an exercise of executive power which abridges the enforcement of the judgment, but does not alter it qua judgment. To reduce a sentence by amendment alters the terms of the judgment itself and is a judicial act as much as the imposition of the sentence in the first instance. ” [Emphasis in original]
I am unable to join the court in the step it takes today.