Court Opinion

ID: 8810502
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 15:01:42.984718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:04:16.278247
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). It is quite apparent that the above-mentioned commitment order made by the District Court for the Southern District of California was not intended to change in any respect its previously rendered and affirmed judgment. In specifying the place of imprisonment, there was a compliance with the direction of the Attorney General. The extent of the authority conferred on the Attorney General by the statute under which he acted (10 U. S. Comp. St. Ann. § 10547) is to have the place of imprisonment changed. He is not empowered to make the period of imprisonment different from what it would have been if the place of imprisonment designated in the judgment of the court had remained unchanged. His exercise of the power conferred is not to be given the effect of accomplishing an unauthorized result. There is nothing to indicate that the above-mentioned letter of the Attorney General, or the commitment order made in pursuance of it, purported or was intended to have the effect given to it by the order appealed from. If the change of the place of confinement of the convict had not been so made, his confinement in the San Quentin penitentiary coixld not have commenced until he was released from confinement in the Atlanta penitentiary under the TSiew York conviction.
Under the facts of the instant case, there is nothing upon which to base the conclusion that the sentence on the conviction in California was imposed under such circumstances as to make it run concurrently with any other sentence. So far as appears," at the time that sentence was imposed, the convict was not the subject of any other sentence, imposed by that or any other court. As above slated, the commitment order made hy the California trial court does not purport to make any change in its judgment rendered at a previous term and thereafter affirmed. To give that order, the writ issued under it, and the written statement made hy the warden on his receipt of the commitment writ, the effect of making the period of the convict’s confinement shorter than it would have been if the place of confinement had not been changed, would amount to making a change in the effect and operation of the affirmed judgment which was not authorized, and whicli does not appear to have been intended by either the Attorney *612General or the court making the order of commitment. It was not in the power of the warden to make an authorized change in the place of imprisonment have the further effect of shortening the period of imprisonment.
Under the circumstances of the issue of the California commitment writ and the receipt of it by the warden, the latter was thereby authorized, upon the expiration of the period of the convict’s imprisonment under the New York sentence, to retain him in custody for the period required by the California sentence. The marshal did not execute the writ by arresting Lyman and delivering him to the warden. The convict was already in the warden’s custody, held under another unexpired sentence. In the opinion of the writer, what was done did not have the effect of making the convict’s confinement in the Atlanta penitentiary under the California sentence commence sooner than it could have commenced if the place of his confinement had not been changed. The application of the conclusion just stated to the facts disclosed leads to the further conclusion that when the writ of habeas corpus was issued, and when the order appealed from was made, the appellee was not entitled to be discharged from custody, because the period of his imprisonment under the California sentence had not expired; and that the court erred in ordering his discharge.