James Sheehan
| Decision Date | 07 January 1926 |
| Citation | 254 Mass. 342 |
| Parties | JAMES SHEEHAN, petitioner. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
November 11, 1925.
Present: RUGG, C.
J., BRALEY, PIERCE & SANDERSON, JJ.
Practice, Criminal Sentence, Transfer of juvenile from industrial school to reformatory. Constitutional Law, Police power, Separation of departments of government, Due process of law.
Existing pertinent statutes are read into and become a part of a sentence imposed by a court in a criminal proceeding.
The definition of crimes and the establishment of penalties therefor, so far as not left to the common law, belong to the Legislature; the trial of those charged with crime and the imposition of sentences upon those convicted are a part of the functions of courts; the execution of sentences according to standing laws is an attribute of the executive department of government this is in conformity to the sharp and strict separation of the legislative, the executive and the judicial departments of government in article 30 in our Declaration of Rights.
It is within the power of the Legislature to provide for the segregation of refractory inmates of the Industrial School for Boys by transferring them to another State institution adapted to their needs.
The Legislature in the exercise of the police power and to promote the general welfare has power to enact reasonable laws for the transfer of those confined for crime from one of its institutions to another.
A boy between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years, on his plea of guilty to a complaint charging him with breaking and entering a building and committing larceny therein, was duly committed to the Industrial
School for Boys at Shirley "during his minority, or until he be discharged according to law." Later, proving refractory, he was removed by the trustees of the school to the reformatory at Concord. Upon a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, it was held, that
(1) The boy's crime being punishable either in the school or in the reformatory, the effect of G.L.c. 120, Section 16, was to incorporate into the sentence imposed as an integral part of it the condition that, if he proved unmanageable or unfit for the mild treatment of the industrial school, he might be transferred by the proper executive officers to the reformatory;
(2) The transfer of the boy from the industrial school to the reformatory was not an infringement of the powers of the judiciary;
(3) There was no violation of due process of law; (4) The statute G.L.c. 120, Section 16, rightly interpreted, does not interfere with any constitutional right secured to the boy.
PETITION, filed in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on April 24, 1925, for a writ of habeas corpus seeking the liberty of James Sheehan, a boy between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years, who was committed to the Industrial School for Boys at Shirley and afterwards was transferred to the Massachusetts Reformatory at Concord, as described in the opinion.
The petition was heard by Wait, J., who ordered it to be dismissed and, at the petitioner's request, reported the case to the full court for determination.
S.A. Dearborn, for the petitioner. A.R. Shrigley, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.
This is a petition for habeas corpus brought by a minor by his next friend. The petitioner, on his plea of guilty to a complaint charging him with breaking and entering a building and committing larceny therein, was duly committed to the Industrial School for Boys at Shirley "during his minority, or until he be discharged according to law." No question is raised as to the regularity of those proceedings. G.L.c. 119, Sections 73, 76, 77. Sylvester v. Commonwealth, 253 Mass. 244 .
While at the Shirley school, the petitioner, contrary to its rules and regulations, made one ineffectual attempt to escape, and actually escaped on two occasions, on each of which, during an absence of several days, he committed crimes and depredations until his apprehension and return. Thereafter he was transferred to the Massachusetts Reformatory at Concord because he had proved unmanageable and an improper person to remain at the Shirley school. This transfer was made by the Trustees of the Massachusetts Training Schools, the board having charge of the Shirley school, pursuant to the alleged authority conferred by G.L.c. 120, Section 16, which is in these words: "The trustees may transfer any person committed or transferred to the industrial school for boys or to the Lyman school for boys, still in the custody of said trustees, who has proved unmanageable or an improper person to remain in either of the said institutions, to the Massachusetts reformatory. . . ."
The contention of the petitioner is that such transfer constituted a change of punishment, was an attempt to infringe upon the judicial by the legislative department of government, was an interference with a sentence imposed by the court, was a delegation of judicial functions to an administrative board, and was an imposition of a greater, additional or substituted sentence for that prescribed by the court. The constitutionality of the statute, which in terms authorizes such transfer, is assailed on all these grounds.
It was said in Opinion of the Justices, 13 Gray, 618, that a general statute, authorizing the reduction of a sentence to imprisonment by a fixed scale based on good behavior by the prisoner during his incarceration and the consequent shortening of the term of imprisonment from that imposed by the court, was constitutional. Murphy v. Commonwealth, 172 Mass. 264 , 266. A statute requiring an indeterminate sentence between a stated maximum and a fixed minimum, the precise time of release to be decided by an executive or administrative board, has been held constitutional. Commonwealth v. Brown, 167 Mass. 144 , 146. G.L.c. 279, Section 24. Oliver v. Oliver, 169 Mass. 592. State v. Page, 60 Kans. 664. In re Marlow, 46 Vroom, 400. The parole statute, authorizing a public board to permit a prisoner to be at liberty upon conditions during an unexpired remainder of his term, G.L.c. 127, Section 135, has been referred to incidentally although its constitutionality has not been passed upon. Conlon's Case, 148 Mass. 168 . Kozlowsky, petitioner, 238 Mass. 532 . Authorities in other jurisdictions uphold the constitutionality of parole statutes. State v. Duff, 144 Iowa, 142. People v. Joyce, 246 Ill. 124, 132-137. State v. Peters, 43 Ohio St. 629. Woods v. State, 130 Tenn. 100. As to suspended sentences, see Mariano v. Judge of District Court of Central Berkshire, 243 Mass. 90 .
These decisions go far toward settling the question here at issue. The principle on which they rest is that existing pertinent statutes are read into and made a part of the sentence imposed by the court.
The definition of crimes and the establishment of penalties therefor, so far as not left to the common law, belong to the Legislature. The trial of those charged with crime and the imposition of sentences upon those convicted are a part of the functions of courts. The execution of sentences according to standing laws is an attribute of the executive department of government. This is in conformity to the sharp and strict separation of the legislative, the executive and the judicial departments of government in article 30 in our Declaration of Rights.
The proceeding under which the petitioner was sentenced to the industrial school at Shirley is wholly prescribed by statute. It is a...
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