Harris v. Langlois
| Decision Date | 08 July 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 1633,1633 |
| Citation | 202 A.2d 288,98 R.I. 387 |
| Parties | Ronald J. HARRIS v. Harold V. LANGLOIS, Warden. M. P. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Ronald J. Harris, pro se.
J. Joseph Nugent, Atty. Gen., Corinne P. Grande, Sp. Counsel, for respondent.
This is a petition for habeas corpus to determine the validity of the order of February 18, 1963 of the superior court committing the petitioner to the adult correctional institutions to serve a ten-year sentence for rape. We issued the writ, the pertinent papers were certified to this court, and thereafter by leave of court the case was submitted on briefs without oral argument.
The petitioner's brief advances five reasons in support of his contention that the order of commitment is illegal and void. While the brief is signed by him pro se it bears all the earmarks of having been drafted by one skilled in the art of brief-making. Moreover, the argumentation therein of the above-mentioned reasons appears to have been done in true lawyer-like fashion. We mention these things merely to emphasize the fact that petitioner's case has not been lacking in adequate representation.
The petitioner's complaint that he is unlawfully deprived of his liberty is based upon the alleged illegal action of the superior court in revoking his probation. On November 23, 1955 he pleaded nolo in the superior court to an indictment for rape and thereupon the trial justice deferred sentence. On December 4, 1962 he was again before that court for violation of the conditions of such deferred sentence and he was held without bail until January 3, 1963, pending a presentence report. On that date the superior court imposed a ten-year sentence and thereupon suspended it for a probationary period of five years on the conditions that petitioner keep the peace, be of good behavior and submit to medical treatment. Shortly thereafter, on January 26, 1963, in the district court of the sixth judicial district he was charged with assault on his wife and on February 7, 1963 he was found not guilty. On February 7, 1963 he pleaded guilty in that court to the charge of driving without a license and was fined $25 and costs.
On February 8, 1963 petitioner was brought before the superior court on a capias for having violated the conditions of his probation and his case was continued until February 18, 1963, pending the court's receipt of a presentence report. On that day the assistant attorney general represented to the court that petitioner had violated the conditions of his probation and moved to revoke the order of suspension. In the course of his remarks concerning petitioner's conduct he referred among other things to petitioner's bad conduct toward his wife generally subsequent to the suspension of sentence, notwithstanding his acquittal of the assault charge. He also informed the court of petitioner's conduct with another woman of a specially offensive nature. In answer thereto petitioner's counsel was heard at length and he sought to excuse petitioner from responsibility therefor. He sought also to show that the court should not consider the information concerning petitioner's conduct toward his wife in view of his acquittal of the assault charge.
Before he rendered decision the trial justice allowed petitioner to speak in his own behalf. He admitted that his conduct in the past had not been what it should have been in view of the leniency which had been accorded to him, but he asked for further leniency and promised to work and support his family. The trial justice reminded him that he had made similar promises in the past on the strength of which sentence had been originally deferred and that he had not kept them. He was also reminded that notwithstanding such breach he was accorded further leniency by way of probation because the trial justice felt he should be given another chance to redeem himself. And now it appeared from the probation officer's presentence report that he had again failed to keep such promises, resulting in the probation officer's opinion that he deserved no further consideration.
The trial justice thereupon observed that he had given that report special and prolonged consideration at his home in the hope that he 'might again find some good cause to be lenient' but that he found it impossible. He then announced his decision as follows: 'the suspension of the sentence that I gave you a little over a month ago is revoked and you are ordered committed to jail to start serving the ten year sentence I had given you on rape after giving you a deferred.'
Under his first two points petitioner contends that at the hearing before the trial justice he was denied due process of law in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution and art. I, sec. 10, of the state constitution in that the trial justice acted upon hearsay and prejudicial, inflammatory statements of the assistant attorney general and without confronting petitioner with the witnesses against him. There is no merit in either contention. The petitioner misconceives the nature of the hearing for revocation of a suspended sentence and probation. 'Except as statute may provide otherwise, no formal charge or hearing is necessary before the court may revoke a suspension or probation and impose sentence.' 24 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1572(4), p. 500. Our statute provides only that, 'After receiving the report or statement of facts from the police and the probation department, or from the probation authority alone, in open court, in the presence of the defendant, the court may remove the suspension and order the defendant committed on the sentence previously imposed, or may continue the suspension, as to said court may seem just and proper.' G.L.1956, § 12-19-9.
There is no constitutional right to notice and a hearing before revocation. It is a privilege accorded by act of Congress in the federal courts. Escoe v. Zerbst, 295 U.S. 490, 493, 55 S.Ct. 818, 820, 79 L.Ed. 1566. But there the court said, speaking through Cardozo, J.: ...
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Flint v. Howard
...on which the cited cases were decided. Specifically, in Walker v. Langlois, 104 R.I. 274, 243 A.2d 733 (1968) and Harris v. Langlois, 98 R.I. 387, 202 A.2d 288 (1964), we held that the decision of a revoking justice, unlike a jury verdict, can be supported by hearsay Again in Charest v. How......
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...706, 708-09 n. 2, 315 A.2d 53, 54 n. 2 (1974); O'Neill v. Sharkey, 107 R.I. 524, 529, 268 A.2d 720, 723 (1970); Harris v. Langlois, 98 R.I. 387, 391-92, 202 A.2d 288, 290-91, cert. denied, 379 U.S. 866, 85 S.Ct. 138, 13 L.Ed.2d 70 (1964).3 Subsequent to our opinion in Flint v. Howard, 110 R......
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...States Penitentiary, 351 F.2d 564 (7th Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 1028, 86 S.Ct. 651, 15 L.Ed.2d 541 (1966); Harris v. Langlois, 202 A.2d 288 (R.I.1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 866, 85 S.Ct. 138, 13 L.Ed.2d 70; Escoe v. Zerbst, 295 U.S. 490, 55 S.Ct. 818, 79 L.Ed. 1566 (1935); Selle......
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Tillinghast v. Howard, 1311-M
...filed with his petition while respondent's accompanied the show cause answer. In his memorandum, petitioner relied on Harris v. Langlois, 98 R.I. 387, 202 A.2d 288 (1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 866, 85 S.Ct. 138, 13 L.Ed.2d 70, wherein this court stated inter alia that the underlying reaso......