In re Campbell

• Decision Date: 22 December 1904
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: In re CAMPBELL.

101 N.W. 826

138 Mich. 597

In re CAMPBELL.

Supreme Court of Michigan

December 22, 1904

Petition of Mary Campbell for writ of habeas corpus. Writ dismissed.

Timothy E. Tarsney and John W. McGrath, for petitioner.

Charles A. Blair, Atty. Gen., and George S. Law, for respondent Superintendent of House of Correction.

CARPENTER, J.

January 5, 1904, petitioner was convicted of the crime of larceny in the circuit court for the county of Clinton. She was sentenced to confinement in the Detroit House of Correction for a period 'not less than one year.' No maximum term of imprisonment was fixed by the court pronouncing sentence. The minimum term fixed by the court having expired if petitioner receives allowance for good time, she demands her release upon the ground that her further detention is illegal, because the court failed to fix any maximum term of imprisonment. Petitioner's right to be discharged is based on the contention that it was the duty of the court, in sentencing her, to fix a maximum term for her imprisonment. The correctness of this contention depends upon the proper construction of section 1, Act No. 136, p. 168 (the indeterminate sentence act) of the Public Acts of 1903, which reads as follows: 'Every sentence to the State Prison at Jackson, to the Michigan Reformatory at Ionia, to the State House of Correction and Branch of the State Prison in the Upper Peninsula, and to the Detroit House of Correction, of any person hereafter convicted of a crime, except of a person sentenced for life, or a child under fifteen years of age shall be an indeterminate sentence as hereinafter provided. The term of imprisonment of any person so convicted and sentenced shall not exceed the maximum term provided by law for the crime for which the prisoner was convicted and sentenced, and no prisoner shall be discharged until after he shall have served at least the minimum term as provided by law for the crime for which he was convicted: provided, that in all cases where the maximum sentence, in the discretion of the court, may be for life or any number of years, the court imposing sentence shall fix the maximum sentence: provided further, that in all cases where no minimum sentence is fixed by law, the court imposing sentence shall fix such minimum which minimum shall not be less than six months.' This statute imposes on the trial court the duty and gives it authority to fix the maximum sentence only 'in cases where the maximum sentence, in the discretion of the court may be for life or for any number of years.' Did this authorize or require the trial court to fix a maximum sentence for petitioner? The law in express terms fixed the maximum term of imprisonment for the crime (larceny) for which petitioner was convicted and sentenced at five years. See section 11,553, Comp. Laws 1897. If the trial court can or should fix the maximum sentence in this case, he must fix it in every case where the law fixes a maximum term of imprisonment, and gives him discretion to lessen that term. In short, under that construction, it is the duty of the trial court to fix a maximum sentence in nearly every case in which he sentences a convict. What is meant by 'cases where the maximum sentence, in the discretion of the court, may be for life or any number of years'? Does it mean all cases where a court has authority to sentence for a less period of time than a definite number of years, which the statute in express terms says shall be the maximum? If it does, the proviso, which it may be presumed extends to only a part of the instances within the statute, embraces substantially all of them. If it does, the trial judge, by prescribing a very low maximum, may totally deprive the Governor, pardon board, and board of control of the opportunity to exercise the discretion which the statute intended to give them. If it does, then the trial judge, in cases where he can fix the minimum--as in larceny--may, by increasing the minimum and reducing the maximum, make a determinate sentence, and thus frustrate the legislative purpose in enacting the indeterminate sentence law. If the Legislature intended to require the judge to fix a maximum term of imprisonment in substantially all cases, it would not have said, as it did in section 6 of the act, that a prisoner violating the conditions of his parol shall 'serve out the unexpired portion of his maximum possible imprisonment.' In that case it would have been more appropriate and much easier to have said 'maximum imprisonment.' Moreover, 'cases where the maximum sentence in the discretion of the court may be for life, or any number of years,' is not an appropriate description of a case in which the law fixes the maximum sentence at a definite number of years. In this latter case the maximum...