Belden v. Hugo

• Decision Date: 17 July 1914
• Citation: 88 Conn. 500,91 A. 369
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: BELDEN v. HUGO, Sheriff.

91 A. 369

88 Conn. 500

BELDEN

v. HUGO, Sheriff.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 17, 1914.

Case Reserved from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County; Earnest C. Simpson, Judge.

Habeas corpus by George W. Belden against Philip Hugo, Sheriff, to determine the legality of the petitioner's imprisonment. Reserved upon the facts alleged in the pleadings for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors. Trial court advised to remand the petitioner to the custody of the sheriff.

The petitioner, having been convicted of the crime of abortion at the April term of the superior court in New Haven county, was, on April 24, 1913, sentenced to be imprisoned in the common jail in New Haven for and during the term of one year, and to pay a fine of $400, together with the costs of prosecution, and to stand committed to jail until the sentence be fully complied with. He thereupon paid the fine and costs, and the court ordered that execution of that part of the sentence which directed that the petitioner be imprisoned in jail for the term of one year be suspended, and that the petitioner be committed to the custody of a probation officer designated for the term of one year and until further order of court, and ordered the case continued on the docket. A mittimus was then issued committing the petitioner to the care and custody of the probation officer as stated. The case came by continuance to the January term, 1914, when the petitioner was brought before the court by the probation officer on the 14th of January, 1914. At that time the court revoked the order of suspension recited, and ordered that the accused be committed to jail to serve the term of his sentence; the same to begin on that day. A mittimus was thereupon issued to the respondent to keep him in jail for the term of one year from January 14, 1914. These proceedings were begun April 27, 1914, more than one year after the imposition of the sentence upon the petitioner.

Samuel E. Hoyt, of New Haven, for petitioner. Arnon A. Ailing, State's Atty., and Walter M. Pickett, Asst. State's Atty., both of New Haven, for respondent.

PRENTICE C. J. (after stating the facts as above). Section 4 of chapter 142 of the Public Acts of 1905, as subsequently amended, provides that any criminal court in any case within its jurisdiction, or the judge who held such court upon a hearing after the adjournment of the term, may adjourn the case or suspend sentence and commit the accused to the custody of a probation officer, either regularly appointed or specially designated, for such time not exceeding one year as might be fixed. P. A. 1911, c. 106, § 1. The plaintiff's conviction, sentence to imprisonment for one year and payment of fine, immediately paid, and commitment to the custody of the probation officer for the term of one year, after an order of suspension of execution of the sentence of imprisonment had been entered, took place while this statute was in effect.

Although the provision referred to is inartificially framed, it is apparent from the context, and especially that contained in section 5, that, interpreted according to its true meaning and intent, it confers upon the courts power to either suspend sentence in the strict meaning of that phrase, which implies that sentence is not pronounced, or to suspend the execution of a sentence pronounced. This counsel for the petitioner does rot question. He does not complain of any irregularity in the judicial proceedings. His sole contention is that the judgment of the court had been satisfied before the commencement of these proceedings by the passage of one year from the date of imposition of sentence, during all of which period he was either in the custody of the probation officer or in jail, so that his client was and is entitled to his enlargement. The state's attorney, representing the respondent, insists that the plaintiff will not have satisfied the sentence of imprisonment imposed upon him until one year from the time that the order of suspension of execution was revoked and the mittimus to the respondent issued, and he shall have spent one year thereafter in jail.

These conflicting claims arise from a fundamental difference of view as to the meaning and intent of our probation law, of which the section referred to forms a part. In the view of the petitioner, the secondary commitment to the custody of the probation officer provided for by the statute, where sentence to imprisonment is pronounced, is a substitute or alternative for the primary commitment to jail or to prison embodied in the sentence, so that the period of the former counts in reckoning the period of the latter. The view of the state's attorney is that the probation period stands wholly unrelated to a satisfaction of the sentence as such, and can have no effect upon the sentence save as it may, if its purpose is fulfilled by reform of life, lead to an exemption from its operation.

One of the difficulties with the plaintiff's view is that it ignores the purpose of the probation commitment and mistakes its true character. It is not ordered for the purpose of punishment for the wrong for which there has been a conviction, or for general wrong-doing. Its aim is reformatory and not punitive. It is to bring one who has fallen into evil ways under oversight and influences which may lead him to a better living. The end sought is the good of the individual wrongdoer, and not his punishment. Underlying the act of commitment is the hope that it may prove that punishment will be unnecessary, and that its stigma may be avoided. A sentence partakes of an essentially different character. It is the judgment of the court formally pronounced "awarding the punishment to be inflicted." Black's Law Dictionary, 1071. It deals out punishment, and one of its underlying aims is to cause its subject to suffer for the wrong he has done.

The suggestion that the probation commitment partakes of a penal character because it involves an award of custody, a restraint of liberty of conduct by the necessity of observance of prescribed rules and regulations, and the creation of a right and power of supervision in another is one which overlooks the end sought and the fundamental character of the limitations upon personal independence which are involved. Restraints upon individual freedom of action are not by any means all penal. The youth at school is under restraint. He comes under the duty of obedience to the rules prescribed for his well-being and wholesome development. He is subject to the supervision of a superior, and yet his school life is not one of punishment. There are limitations upon the right of individual freedom of action born of social conditions which are constantly recognized. Their character is not penal where the purpose of their imposition is not punitory.

The nonpenal character of the probation commitment under our law is plainly recognized in its provisions wherein a suspension of the execution of the sentence imposed is provided for where a commitment to the custody of a probation officer is made, and a revocation of the suspension provided for when imprisonment in conformity to the sentence is to begin. The sentence, to use the words of the statute, does not come to have full force and effect until this revocation is made. A sentence unexecuted entails no punishment upon the offender. It is only a judicial pronouncement. It is the carrying into effect of the sentence by process providing for its execution which results in punishment. A suspension of execution necessarily involves a suspension of the penal consequences of the judgment. Suspension is altogether inconsistent with operation. It implies a stay—a cessation of operation. The position of a person under sentence, but committed to the care of a probation officer, as described in the language of the statute, involves the conception of a ceasing of the operation of the sentence, and not operation of the sentence proceeding simultaneously with or by means of the probation process. The statute plainly contemplates nothing of the latter sort. It as plainly contemplates that proceedings to secure punishment shall not be in force during the period when the probation process is in operation, and that execution of sentence will not run unless and until that process shall have failed to accomplish the desired results.

It is suggestive of the law's conception of the relation of a probationer to the probation officer that in section 9 of the statute it is provided that the former be considered as the latter's ward. The officer is thus represented as standing in the eye of the law in the position of a guardian, and not that of a keeper.

The appellant, in support of his prayer for release, claims that the action of the court in committing him to the care of the probation officer, if the period of such commitment was not to be reckoned as in satisfaction pro tanto of the sentence of imprisonment, was in excess of its authority as being in its essence an exercise of the pardoning power. In aid of this contention, we are referred to several cases, of which State v. Sturgis, 110 Me. 96, 85 Atl. 474, 43 L. R. A. (N. S.) 443, is a good example, wherein it has been held, in substance, that courts are powerless after sentence to interfere with the execution of the sentence by way of its commutation, the exoneration of the prisoner therefrom, or modification of its terms.

These cases all dealt with the inherent power of courts in the absence of enabling legislation. Here the superior court acted in conformity with legislation which expressly confided to it the authority it exercised. The question presented to us is therefore in no sense that passed upon in the cases referred to. It does not concern the inherent power of the superior court, but its power under the statute. The terms of the statute are, as we have seen adequate to justify the action taken. If that action was unlawful, it could be for no other...