Allen v. Warden, Community Correctional Center
| Decision Date | 27 February 1975 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 142149-142154,s. 142149-142154 |
| Citation | 31 Conn.Supp. 459,334 A.2d 488 |
| Court | Connecticut Superior Court |
| Parties | Richard E. ALLEN v. WARDEN, COMMUNITY CORRECTIONAL CENTER. William H. BROCKENBERRY v. WARDEN, COMMUNITY CORRECTIONAL CENTER. Benjamin C. LITTLE v. WARDEN, COMMUNITY CORRECTIONAL CENTER. Hugh SUGGS v. WARDEN, COMMUNITY CORRECTIONAL CENTER. James WHITE, Jr. v. WARDEN, COMMUNITY CORRECTIONAL CENTER. James WRIGHT v. WARDEN, COMMUNITY CORRECTIONAL CENTER. |
Memorandum of decision in petitions for habeas corpus. Petitions granted nisi.
Sue L. Wise, New Haven, for plaintiffs.
Robert E. Beach, Jr., Woodbridge, for defendant.
Frank B. Cochran, Hartford, filed a brief as amicus curiae.
These proceedings concern habeas corpus petitions of six individuals who were ordered incarcerated in the community correctional center by the Circuit Court because of their inability to pay fines which were imposed on the day they were ordered taken into custody. While the primary fulcrum of the petitions relates to a claim of a violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, as the defendant concedes in his brief, ancillary issues also evolved at the hearings held by this court, requiring in addition the determination whether the plaintiffs were accorded their rights under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the plaintiffs are entitled to amend their petitions to that effect. Practice Book § 132; Thibault v. Frechett, 135 Conn. 170, 172, 62 A.2d 863.
The plaintiffs were committed to the correctional center under § 18-63 1 of the General Statutes and at the time of the hearings were 'working off' their fines as provided by § 18-50. 2 In order that these cases might not be moot by the time this court acted on these petitions, the plaintiffs were released pending this decision.
The procedure followed by the Circuit Court (now the Court of Common Pleas; Public Acts 1974, No. 74-183), as explained by the chief clerk of that court, was as follows: The attorneys for the parties engaged in plea bargaining. A plea of guilty resulted. A fine was then imposed. However, the judgment ordering payment of a fine was immediately vacated. One to several weeks later the fine was reimposed, the lapse of time presumably being designed to give the accused an opportunity to obtain funds to meet the fine. In these six cases that procedure was adopted, but on the day sentences were pronounced, i.e., the day the judicial order for payment of the fines was made, the plaintiffs were unable to pay the fines, although some could have paid a part, and were ordered jailed. In fact and in law, the day the fines were 'reimposed,' to use the language of the sentencing judge, was the first and only day the plaintiffs were ordered to pay the fines, since "when an order or judgment is vacated the previously existing status is restored and the situation is the same as though the order or judgment had never been made." Wrang v. Spencer, 4 Conn.Cir.Ct. 473, 235 A.2d 861, 863, 49 C.J.S. Judgments § 306. Thus on the day sentence was pronounced the plaintiffs had not flouted any previously declared order to pay the fines, the imposition of which had previously been vacated. The very day the plaintiffs were ordered to pay the fines was the day they were incarcerated.
That these plaintiffs were indigent at the time of their court appearances is crystal clear from the evidence elicited at the instant hearings. No inquiry was made by the sentencing court at any time as to the ability or plan of the plaintiffs to pay their fines on the day to which the cases were continued. (That, in effect, was the result of the vacating of the judgments on the initial court appearance-a continuance.) Nor was there any interrogation by the court on the sentencing day as to the family or economic circumstances of the plaintiffs. The evidence does not indicate any standard by which the length of the 'continuance' was determined. There was obviously no relation between the amount of the fine and the time given via the 'continuance' to obtain the money. In none of the cases was the accused given the opportunity of explaining his inability to pay the total amount of the fine, although in several cases credible intervening occurrences precluded payment. Indeed, in some instances an attempt by counsel or the accused to explain was cut off by the presiding judge. Had an inquiry been made either at the time the plaintiffs first appeared in court or at the later date when the effective fines were actually imposed, it would have been readily apparent that the plaintiffs could not pay the fines in toto. The interval of time did not change their financial status. When they first appeared in court they were impoverished-a condition which was in most cases further exacerbated in the intervening weeks because of intervening events. It is true that in at least two cases the court had been told that the accused probably could meet the fine on the future day of sentencing, but that hope was obviously predicated on rosy but unrealistic vaticination.
These plaintiffs are not defiant. They are not contumacious. They are not wilfully seeking to avoid payment of the fines. Nor are they negligently in default. Actually some of them had borrowed some money or had secured a job but did not have all the fine money available on the day they were sentenced. Nevertheless, on they day, without their being afforded an opportunity to explain their incapacity to meet the fines and without their being given a reasonable time within which to pay the fines, they were ordered jailed under § 18-63. They all would welcome the opportunity of paying their fines by instalment payments-a procedure proposed by the American Bar Association 3 and adopted by several states. Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 400, 91 S.Ct. 668, 28 L.Ed.2d 130, n. 5.
While this court is reluctant to paint § 18-63 with the brush of unconstitutionality, it is concluded that, so far as these cases are concerned, the factual situation clearly demonstrates that the plaintiffs were not accorded their constitutional rights as guaranteed by the equal protection and due process clauses of the fourteenth amendment. While § 18-63 is nondiscriminatory on its face, it is discriminatory in its operation with reference to these plaintiffs. As to them it worked an invidious discrimination because, solely because they are poor, they face incarceration. See Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 90 S.Ct. 2018, 26 L.Ed.2d 586, Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 91 S.Ct. 668, 28 L.Ed.2d 130. This incarceration follows the only time that they were ordered to pay a fine. The effect of the procedure converted the nonpayment of the fine into an immediate jail sentence-a constitutionally defective judicial mechanism. Tate v. Short, supra. A statute may operate constitutionally under one set of circumstances but not under another. Collins v. Yoek, 159 Conn. 150, 158, 267 A.2d 668.
The majority of these plaintiffs were jobless at their original appearance in court. Judicial notice is taken of the increasing rate of joblessness. Their ages range from sixteen to twenty-one years. Relatively speaking, they are uneducated, untrained, and unskilled. For some, their economic status, far from being ameliorated, worsened by the time they appeared for sentence when the fines were 'reimposed.' A cursory inquiry by the court would have elicited that fact. Even allowing for the few weeks' time given them to pay fines ranging rom $125 to $750 to have expected these plaintiffs, who had no assets, or none of any significance, entirely to pay the fines flies in the face of reality. It could not reasonably be expected that they could accumulate the fine money during the interim period. Their incarceration was necessitated by their indigency.
In view of the observations above, the fact that a few weeks were allowed to elapse before the sentences were pronounced did not, ipso facto, under the circumstances of these cases, cause the sentences to pass constitutional muster. The state elicited no proof that the plaintiffs had the capacity to pay the debt. As a matter of fact, in some cases an attempt of counsel or the accused to explain was abruptly terminated by the court. The defendant claims that the common-law right of allocution has never been recognized in Connecticut. State v. Hoyt, 47 Conn. 518, 542-46; Brisson v. Warden, 25 Conn.Supp. 202, 204, 200 A.2d 250. Nevertheless, if the sentencing judge had allowed the plaintiffs to explain their circumstances after an initial inquiry had been instituted by him, that method might well have eliminated the present complaint.
This court is not unmindful of the fact that these guilty pleas resulted from the plea bargaining process. It may also be asserted that, once that modus operandi has been pursued, the accused cannot raise claims relating to deprivation of constitutional rights which occurred prior to the guilty pleas. See Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 273, 93 S.Ct. 1602, 36 L.Ed.2d 235 (dissenting opinion). The constitutional infirmity of which the plaintiffs complain relate, however, to sentencing procedures occurring after the entry of the pleas.
The state contends that the negotiated plea resulted in a fine 'payable' on an agreed date. There was no testimony at the hearing indicating that that was the fact. As a matter of fact, on the day the plaintiffs were jailed, the scanty transcripts indicate, the fines were 'reimposed,' supporting the testimony of the chief clerk, and indeed the declaration in the defendant's brief, that the judgments resulting from the initial imposition of the fines were vacated and the cases continued to a future date. The defendant claims an indigent accused is treated differently. He is given time to pay the fine.
Even if it is assumed that the plan adopted by the Circuit Court was a...
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Gaines v. Manson
...83 S.Ct. 1288, 10 L.Ed.2d 200 (1963); Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 18, 76 S.Ct. 585 , 100 L.Ed. 891 (1956)[; Allen v. Warden, 31 Conn.Sup. 459, 463-64, 334 A.2d 488 (1975) ]. Since the state has established an appellate forum, 'these avenues must be kept free of unreasoned distinctions......