United States v. York

• Decision Date: 28 February 1968
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 12376.
• Citation: 281 F. Supp. 8
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. Carrie ROBINSON v. Janet YORK, Superintendent, Connecticut State Farm for Women.

281 F. Supp. 8

UNITED STATES ex rel. Carrie ROBINSON v. Janet YORK, Superintendent, Connecticut State Farm for Women.

Civ. No. 12376.

United States District Court D. Connecticut.

February 28, 1968.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Howard Baran, Ralph E. Sluis, Middletown, Conn., for plaintiff.

John Rose, Jr., Woodbridge, Conn., Edmund W. O'Brien, State's Atty., Norwich, Conn., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

BLUMENFELD, District Judge.

The petitioner, Carrie Robinson, age thirty-eight, by this petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenges the constitutionality of Conn.Gen.Stats. § 17-360, under the provisions of which she was sentenced to the Connecticut State Farm for Women, Niantic, for an indefinite term not to exceed three years. That statute provides:

"Women over sixteen years of age belonging to any of the following classes may be committed by any court of criminal jurisdiction to said institution: First, persons convicted of, or who plead guilty to, the commission of felonies; second, persons convicted of, or who plead guilty to, the commission of misdemeanors, including prostitution, intoxication, drug-using and disorderly conduct; third, unmarried girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years who are in manifest danger of falling into habits of vice or who are leading vicious lives, and who are convicted thereof in accordance with the provisions of section 17-379; fourth, women sentenced to jails. Only such offenders may be committed to said institution as in the opinion of the trial court will be benefited physically, mentally or morally by such commitment, and, immediately upon commitment, a careful physical and mental examination, by a competent physician, shall be made of each person committed. The court imposing a sentence on offenders of any class shall not fix the term of such commitment. Commitment to said institution shall be made within one week after sentence is imposed, but no offender shall be committed to said institution without being accompanied by a woman in addition to the officer. The trial court shall cause a record of the case to be sent with the commitment papers on blanks furnished by the institution. The duration of such commitment, including the time spent on parole, shall not exceed three years, except when the maximum term specified by law for the crime for which the offender was sentenced exceeds that period, in which event such maximum term shall be the limit of detention under the provisions of this chapter, and, in such cases, the trial court shall specify the maximum term for which the offender may be held under such commitment."¹

Petitioner contends that § 17-360 violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States by permitting adult women to be imprisoned for periods in excess of the maximums applicable to men guilty of the same substantive crimes.²

On November 18, 1966, before the Ninth Circuit Court in Middletown, Mrs. Robinson pleaded guilty to one count of breach of the peace and one of resisting arrest, misdemeanors carrying maximum sentences respectively of one year and six months.³ Conn.Gen.Stats. §§ 53-174, 53-165. Seven months later, on June 23, 1967, petitioner was released on parole from the State Farm. On October 11, 1967, again in the Ninth Circuit Court, she entered guilty pleas to charges of being found intoxicated and willful destruction of property. The sentences entered on these counts were suspended and petitioner was returned as a parole violator to the State Farm under her original sentence.

Exhaustion

Before reaching the merits, respondent argues that a writ cannot be granted in this case because petitioner has failed to exhaust her state remedies as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). Both a failure to appeal her convictions and an alleged failure to seek habeas in the state courts are alleged. As to the first point, having pleaded guilty, she might be held to have waived all non-jurisdictional defects in the prior proceedings, United States ex rel. Glenn v. McMann, 349 F.2d 1018, 1019 (2d Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 915, 86 S.Ct. 906, 15 L.Ed.2d 669 (1966), but it is unlikely that she or her counsel would know that the sentence for an indefinite term at the State Farm might be for a term longer than the statutes defining the specific offenses themselves provided. But unless there was a knowing and intentional waiver of her right to appeal, the failure to do so does not operate per se to bar a petition for habeas corpus. Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963). There is no indication in this case that she "deliberately bypassed" whatever right to appeal she may have had. Id. at 438-439, 83 S.Ct. 849, 9 L.Ed.2d 869. See Labat v. Bennett, 365 F.2d 698 (5th Cir. 1966) (en banc), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 991, 87 S.Ct. 1303, 18 L.Ed.2d 334 (1967). Consistent with the view of Mr. Justice Black that the principles judicially established for the delimitation of habeas corpus "must be construed and applied so as to preserve — not destroy — constitutional safeguards of human life and liberty," Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 465, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938), it is to be presumed that she did not waive fundamental constitutional rights. United States v. Drummond, 354 F.2d 132, 148 (2d Cir. 1965) (en banc), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 1013, 86 S.Ct. 1968, 16 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1966).

No state procedural remedy other than habeas corpus was available to test the legality of her detention. That is an appropriate remedy, for as said of the writ in Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236, 243, 83 S.Ct. 373, 377, 9 L.Ed.2d 285 (1963), it "is not now and never has been a static, narrow, formalistic remedy; its scope has grown to achieve its grand purpose — the protection of individuals against the erosion of their right to be free from wrongful restraints upon their liberty." And see Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. at 401-402, 83 S.Ct. at 829 where the Supreme Court said of what is called the Great Writ:

"* * * its function has been to provide a prompt and efficacious remedy for whatever society deems to be intolerable restraints. Its root principle is that in a civilized society, government must always be accountable to the judiciary for a man's imprisonment: if the imprisonment cannot be shown to conform with the fundamental requirements of law, the individual is entitled to his immediate release."

However, when she sought to avail herself of that remedy the state barred her from it. Petitioner's counsel, serving without fee and working out of an office sponsored by the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity, attempted to file petitions for a writ in the Court of Common Pleas, New London County, and in the Superior Court for New London County. In both cases, he was informed by letter from the clerk of the court that although petitioner was impoverished there was no authority for entering an application without payment of an entry fee of $30, in the case of the Court of Common Pleas, and of $45 in the Superior Court. The inability to pay the entry fees because of indigency cannot be used to deny "the precious right of access to the courts guaranteed under our system of government to all who claim to be wronged." Ex parte Rosier, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 214, 230, 133 F.2d 316, 332 (D.C.Cir. 1942). This court has recently ruled that when an indigent state prisoner's tender of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus is rejected because of her inability to pay the entry fee, the exhaustion requirement has been satisfied. United States ex rel. Rush v. York, 281 F.Supp. 779 (D.Conn.1967). That ruling is adhered to.

Another preliminary question, not adverted to by counsel, is whether a single District Court Judge has jurisdiction to pass upon the constitutionality of a state statute in a habeas corpus proceeding in view of the requirement for a three-judge court under 28 U.S.C. § 2281. It has been authoritatively decided that § 2281 "has no relation to Habeas Corpus proceedings." United States ex rel. Murphy v. Warden of Clinton Prison, 29 F.Supp. 486, 489 (N.D.N.Y.1939), aff'd, 108 F.2d 861 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 309 U.S. 661, 60 S.Ct. 583, 84 L. Ed. 1009 (1940); United States ex rel. Laino v. Warden of Wallkill Prison, 246 F.Supp. 72, 92, n. 16 (S.D.N.Y.1965), aff'd, 355 F.2d 208 (2d Cir. 1966) (per curiam).

Denial of Equal Protection

Starting with the undisputed reading of § 17-360 to permit women to be sentenced for longer terms than it or any other statute permits for men found guilty of committing identical offenses, the question presented is whether the sentence of the petitioner to an indefinite term of imprisonment not to exceed three years because she is a woman over the age of sixteen denied to her equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment.⁴

Legislative Discretion

It must be recognized that wide discretion is allowed to the state's legislature to establish reasonable classifications in promoting the safety and welfare of those within its jurisdiction. As the Supreme Court noted in Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed. 1655 (1942), a "large deference" must be paid to the state in passing on the validity of a classification effected by its criminal statutes.

"A State is not constrained in the exercise of its police power to ignore experience which marks a class of offenders or a family of offenses for special treatment. Nor is it prevented by the equal protection clause from confining `its restrictions to those classes of cases where the need is deemed to be clearest.' * * * `the law does all that is needed when it does all that it can, indicates a policy, applies it to all within the lines, and seeks to bring within the lines all similarly situated so far and so fast as its means allow.'" (316 U.S. at 540, 62 S.Ct. at 1113).

Basis of the Classification

This deference to...