Burgener v. California Adult Authority
| Decision Date | 26 January 1976 |
| Docket Number | No C-74-1631-CBR.,C-74-1631-CBR. |
| Citation | 407 F. Supp. 561 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
| Parties | Michael R. BURGENER, on behalf of himself and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. CALIFORNIA ADULT AUTHORITY et al., Defendants. |
Lynn S. Carman, San Rafael, Cal., Garry, Dreyfus, McTernan & Brotsky, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff.
Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen. of Cal., Jack R. Winkler, Edward P. O'Brien, Derald E. Granberg, John T. Murphy, San Francisco, Cal., for defendants.
Petitioner, a prisoner in state custody at San Quentin State Prison, Tamal, California, filed this civil rights complaint and petition for habeas corpus on August 5, 1974, under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983, and 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202, 2241 and 2254, on his own behalf and, pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, on behalf of all other persons similarly situated. He seeks declaratory and injunctive relief. Specifically, petitioner asks the Court to declare, inter alia, (1) that California's Indeterminate Sentence Law, California Penal Code §§ 1168 and 3020, is unconstitutional on its face as violative of the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment, the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment, and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) that petitioner and the members of the purported class have a right to a final fixing of their prison terms within six months of the date of their incarceration; and (3) that all persons incarcerated in California State Prisons for more than six months whose prison terms have not been finally fixed are entitled to be released upon serving the minimum period prescribed by the California Penal Code for their respective offenses.
Petitioner further seeks a permanent injunction requiring the California Adult Authority, inter alia, (1) to determine the sentences of petitioner and other prisons similarly situated; (2) to release forthwith petitioner and all members of the purported class who have completed their minimum terms; (3) to submit to the Court a list of the criteria and a statement of the procedures by which prison terms shall be fixed at hearings; and (4) to accord prisoners the right to counsel, appointed and paid for by the State when appropriate, to represent them at term-fixing hearings, and the right to the same process at those hearings that is due at a sentencing hearing before a court. Petitioner also seeks appointment of counsel, costs and attorneys' fees.
On September 23, 1974, respondents moved to dismiss on the grounds that the petition fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and that petitioner had not exhausted state remedies prior to petitioning this Court for a writ of habeas corpus, as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b). On November 6, 1974, petitioner filed a notice of requirement of a three-judge district court. Respondents' motion to dismiss was heard before a single judge on November 13, 1974. The Court dismissed respondent California Adult Authority but, as to the other respondents, denied the motion on the ground that a three-judge district court should be convened. On November 15, 1974, the Chief Judge of this Circuit appointed a three-judge court.
Counsel for petitioner were appointed on December 3, 1974, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(g). Following a lengthy period of inactivity on the part of petitioner's counsel, respondents filed a second motion to dismiss on August 13, 1975, based essentially on the same grounds set forth in their earlier motion. On September 8, 1975, petitioner filed a motion seeking an order permitting voluntary dismissal of the class action aspects of this case, and also summary judgment in favor of petitioner's individual constitutional claims. These motions, and respondents' motion to dismiss, were argued before the three-judge court at a hearing held on October 23, 1975.
By order dated January 26, 1976, the three-judge court ruled upon the civil rights aspects of the lawsuit as follows: petitioner's motion for summary judgment on his individual claims was denied; respondents' motion to dismiss the individual claims was granted; and the class action allegations of the complaint were dismissed. The three-judge court also held that the single-judge court has jurisdiction to determine the constitutionality of a state statute challenged in a habeas corpus proceeding, and, accordingly, remanded to this Court petitioner's individual habeas corpus claims. It is incumbent upon this Court, then, to consider the claims petitioner raises in his petition for habeas corpus.
Preliminarily, the Court notes that it has read with great care the many criticisms of the indeterminate sentence law set forth in petitioner's briefs and in the accompanying affidavits. Candor compels the Court to acknowledge its general agreement with those criticisms and its personal dislike for California's indeterminate sentencing system. While the indeterminate sentence law may have represented a well-intentioned, indeed enlightened, experiment in criminal sentencing when it was enacted nearly sixty years ago, it is clear, in the Court's opinion, that the experiment has proved a failure. Others, of course, share this view; the Attorney General of California has himself recently urged abolition of the indeterminate sentencing system and has stated that he will soon introduce legislation to achieve that result.
Whatever the Court's personal preference, however, the policy decision to retain or abolish the indeterminate sentencing system is one uniquely within the competence of the Legislature. This Court's scope of inquiry is necessarily more limited. Though that inquiry is limited, and though it appears that the law challenged here may soon be changed, the Court cannot shirk its responsibility to face squarely at this time the constitutional claims petitioner raises.
Petitioner relies upon four constitutional guarantees in support of his petition: the rights to a speedy trial, to due process of law, to equal protection of the laws, and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Petitioner had previously filed two petitions for writs of habeas corpus in state courts, both of which were denied. The first was filed in the Superior Court in Marin County, California, and the second in the California Supreme Court. The latter petition raised only two of the constitutional arguments presented here. As petitioner's counsel formulated the legal issues in that petition:
Thus, it is clear that petitioner has exhausted state remedies only with respect to the Sixth Amendment and Equal Protection arguments.1 Petitioner has not alleged facts which would indicate that, in the circumstances of this case, the state remedy is inadequate to protect his rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the Eighth Amendment, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b); Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 496-497, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), nor has he alleged that because of clear adverse rulings by the state courts, resort to those courts would be futile, Mozingo v. Craven, 341 F.Supp. 296, 299-300 (C.D.Cal., 1972), aff'd, 475 F.2d 1254 (9 Cir. 1973). Therefore, the Court will dismiss petitioner's due process and Eighth Amendment claims for failure to exhaust state remedies.2
Petitioner contends that California's indeterminate sentence law denies him his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial because it does not require final fixing of his sentence within six months of the date of his conviction. In support of this argument petitioner relies upon a large number of cases holding that sentencing is an integral part of a criminal prosecution and, therefore, that an unreasonable post-conviction delay in imposing sentence may under some circumstances constitute a denial of the right to a speedy trial. Petitioner maintains that a sentence imposed by the trial court pursuant to the California indeterminate sentence law "is not a final sentence at all but purely and only an interlocutory sentence" (Brief for Petitioner, at 54), and hence prosecution is not completed until the final sentencing...
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- Burgener v. California Adult Authority, C-74-1631-CBR.
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Com. ex rel. Paulinski v. Isaac
...(complaint of five plaintiffs seeking class action declaratory judgment treated as habeas corpus petition); Burgener v. California Adult Authority, 407 F.Supp. 561 (N.D.Cal.1976). We follow these jurisdictions and reject appellants' claim.3 Article V, section 12(b) reads:"Judges of the traf......