Adams v. Barr
| Decision Date | 13 February 1912 |
| Parties | ADAMS v. BARR, WARDEN. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Jones County; F. O. Ellison, Judge.
Habeas corpus proceedings brought by the plaintiff, an inmate of the penitentiary, to test the legality of his imprisonment. The district court refused to sustain the writ and remanded plaintiff to the custody of the warden. From this order an appeal has been taken. The material facts are stated in the opinion. Reversed.Remley & Remley, for appellant.
George Cosson, Atty. Gen., and John Fletcher, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
On September 11, 1908, in the district court of Osceola county, Iowa, the plaintiff herein was convicted of the crime of burglary. Under the statute then in force, the maximum punishment, which could be lawfully imposed for such offense, was imprisonment in the penitentiary for the term of 20 years. Code, § 4789. At the same time, the statute further provided that, whenever a person over 16 years of age is convicted of a “felony committed subsequent to July 4, 1907--except murder and treason--the court imposing the sentence of confinement in the penitentiary shall not fix the limit or duration of the same, but the term of such imprisonment shall not exceed the maximum term provided by law” for the crime for which the prisoner was convicted. Code Supp. § 5718a13. To this section is added other provisions for a board of parole, upon the initiation of which persons suffering such confinement may be enlarged upon parole before the expiration of the maximum term. This latter statute constitutes what is usually known as the “indeterminate sentence law.” In entering judgment against the plaintiff herein upon his said conviction of burglary, the district court did not impose upon him an indeterminate sentence, but fixed the limit of his confinement in the penitentiary at two years.
If this sentence is to be given effect according to its terms, and plaintiff is accorded the credit which it is agreed he has earned for “good time,” the lawful period of his imprisonment would have expired and he was entitled to be discharged on June 17, 1910, a date which was prior to the beginning of this habeaus corpus proceeding. The board of parole has taken no action and entered no orders concerning the further detention or discharge of the plaintiff. It should also be said that, when plaintiff was received at the prison, an entry was made upon the record or register of that institution that his sentence was for two years and would expire June 17, 1910. Thereafter by the act of the warden the registry was so changed as to indicate a sentence for 20 years. Upon this showing, and without other evidence, the plaintiff was denied relief. In other words, it was held that, notwithstanding the time or term mentioned in the judgment of imprisonment, it was the right and duty of the warden to keep the plaintiff in restraint for the maximum period of 20 years less good time earned, should he not be sooner paroled or pardoned as provided by law. The correctness of this ruling is the one question presented by this appeal.
The appellant's demand for a reversal of the judgment below is based upon two main propositions: First that the judgment was one within the power and authority of the district court to enter, and, having never been appealed from or in any manner modified or set aside, it is the duty of the warden to obey it; and, second, that even if the act of a trial court in imposing a determinative sentence, in cases falling within the scope of the indeterminate sentence law, is to be treated as mere surplusage, and the warden of the penitentiary may ignore the same and detain the prisoner until he becomes entitled to discharge under the terms of the last-mentioned statute, yet in the case at bar, there being no evidence or showing whatever that plaintiff was over 16 years of age when judgment was entered against him, or that the crime of which he was convicted was committed...
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State v. Johnson, 56930
...term provided by law for the crime of which the prisoner was convicted.' As to that enactment, this court observed in Adams v. Barr, 154 Iowa 83, 86, 134 N.W. 564 (1912): '(I)n imposing judgment of imprisonment, in the penitentiary in cases of the kind therein described, the court 'shall no......
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Cave v. Haynes
...Under the indeterminate sentence law the lower court had no such discretion, and we have no authority to interfere." In Adams v. Barr, 154 Iowa 83, 134 N.W. 564, 565, said: " that in imposing judgment of imprisonment, in the penitentiary in cases of the kind therein described, the court ‘ s......
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State v. Taylor
...times because not permitted by the statutes.' For other Iowa cases holding that the sentence is determined by statute see: Adams v. Barr, 154 Iowa 83, 134 N.W. 564; Cave, Keener v. Haynes, Warden, 221 Iowa 1207, 268 N.W. 39; State v. Boyd, 195 Iowa 1091, 191 N.W. The only Iowa case cited by......
- Foshier v. Fetzer