Court Opinion

ID: 9468273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:09:53.541535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:47.461575
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I concur in the opinion of the court so far as it holds that the sentence imposed was illegal because of the illegal condition of restitution made a part of the sentence by the trial court.
I respectfully dissent, however, from that part of our opinion requiring the Attorney General of North Carolina to correct his advice given to the Parole Commission. The letter from the Special Deputy Attorney General to the Chairman of the Parole Commission was a letter from an attorney to his client giving him advice. From that letter, part 1 and prior text, we must assume that the prisoners will first be eligible for parole in August 1982, for the record does not show to the contrary and no claim is made to that effect.
The letter, in part 2 thereof, advises the Parole Commission that if the State loses the appeal on the validity of the trial judge’s condition placed upon the sentence, then the Parole Commission “may not” treat the trial judge’s condition as a recommendation as to what decision the Parole Commission may make. Since the State has lost this part of the appeal, the advice of the attorney to the Parole Commission was favorable to the prisoners, and the State may not treat the trial court’s condition even as a recommendation. So this part of the case is finished; the prisoners have won it, and the letter makes no difference. Indeed, any difference the advice in the letter may make in this respect is favorable to the prisoners.
*68The next advice the letter in question, part 3 thereof, gives the Parole Commission is that it “on its own decision may” impose restitution mentioned by the trial judge as a condition of parole. The Parole Commission has not acted on this letter, and, indeed, it has not acted at all with respect to these prisoners’ parole, not on account of this law suit but on account of the fact they are not yet eligible. When it does act, it may not heed the advice of its attorney, and the attorney specifically sets out in his opinion that any action of the Parole Commission in this respect is discretionary rather than mandatory. I think that until the Parole Commission has acted, especially absent some mandatory or binding opinion of the Attorney General, the decision of this question is premature. In all events, I do not think that we can regulate the advice an attorney gives to his client, although the advice may be wrong, and although the attorney may be in the office of the Attorney General and the client may be an official of the State. We can, and frequently do, regulate the official conduct not only of State but national officials. But we have no warrant to regulate the advice their attorneys give them. I think the condition we impose upon the State because of the advice its Parole Commission has received from the Commission’s attorney is quite as unauthorized as the condition the State trial court imposed upon the prisoners. If the court is of opinion the attorney acted in defiance of the order of the trial court, that matter should be taken care of by way of disciplinary procedure, rather than by the conditional release of two convicted felons.