Jones v. Rayborn
| Decision Date | 19 May 1961 |
| Citation | 346 S.W.2d 743 |
| Parties | William L. JONES, Warden, Kentucky State Penitentiary, Appellant, v. Benjamin F. RAYBORN, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
John B. Breckinridge, Atty. Gen., Wayne J. Carroll, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Benjamin F. Rayborn, pro se.
On November 20, 1946, appellee, Benjamin F. Rayborn, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Jefferson Circuit Court for the crime of armed robbery, and on the same day he was admitted to the Kentucky State Penitentiary at Eddyville for the purpose of serving his term. On March 18, 1947, he was tried in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky and there found guilty under fourteen counts of an indictment. He received the maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment on each count--some of the sentences to run concurrently and some consecutively. In all the total was thirty consecutive years. This total was later reduced to twenty years. See Rayborn v. United States, 6 Cir., 234 F.2d 368. The District Court ordered that the federal sentence be served concurrently with the state imposed sentence and that upon the expiration of the service of the state sentence, the prisoner was to be turned over to federal authorities in order to complete the federal sentence.
In June 1952 a riot occurred at the Eddyville Penitentiary and thereafter a plan developed to transfer Rayborn to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, James V. Bennett, requested an opinion from Kentucky authorities concerning whether the state sentence would continue to operate while Rayborn was in a federal institution. A letter was written on August 15, 1952, to W. E. Watson, then Director of the Kentucky Division of Corrections, by the office of the Attorney General of Kentucky wherein the opinion was expressed that the state sentence would run concurrently with the federal sentence, and Watson referred this letter to the federal authorities.
The record before us is not too certain as to the form or exact nature of the agreements which were reached in connection with Rayborn's transfer to federal custody on September 11, 1952, because no copies of various orders authorizing such release have been filed and we are forced to rely almost entirely upon the memory of the men who were participants. It appears to be sufficiently shown, however, that the Director of the Division of Corrections acting under orders from the Commissioner of the Department of Welfare of this Commonwealth directed the warden of the Kentucky State Penitentiary to release Rayborn to the federal officers. The prisoner objected to this transfer and he did not enter into any agreement to return to Kentucky after he completed his term in the federal penitentiary. While it is shown by some of the letters in the record that the warden was supposed to lodge a detainer with the federal authorities, it is not definitely shown that this was done. In the absence of any papers or copies of papers or other proof which definitely show the manner in which Rayborn was turned over to the federal authorities, we will presume that it was validly and properly done under the law.
At the time of his surrender to federal officers, Rayborn had served 5 years, 9 months and 21 days in the state prison. A prisoner serving a life term is eligible for parole after serving eight years, KRS 439.110. If Rayborn had remained in the Kentucky prison he would have served eight years by November 1954.
After Rayborn was turned over to federal custody, as stated above, his sentence was reduced from thirty to twenty years. In addition, while serving in the United States Penitentiaries at Alcatraz Island, California and at Atlanta, Georgia, his conduct was such that he accumulated 2706 days' deduction from his sentence for good behavior and, on October 20, 1959, he became eligible for parole on his federal sentence.
Prior to that date, on August 25, 1959, in response to a request from the Director of the Division of Corrections, Department of Welfare, the Attorney General of this Commonwealth rendered another opinion in which he set forth that Rayborn must serve a minimum of eight years in a penal institution in this state under the control of the prison authorities of this state before he was eligible for parole consideration and that it was beyond the power or discretion of state authorities to allow time spent in a federal prison to apply in arriving at the minimum of eight years which is necessary before a prisoner is eligible for parole under a life sentence, the effect in application being that no portion of the state sentence for life ran during the 7 years and 2 months' confinement in the federal penitentiaries and that Rayborn must serve approximately 2 years and 2 months in the state penitentiary to complete the eight years necessary.
Upon Rayborn's release from the federal prison he was arrested as a fugitive and returned to Eddyville.
On March 17, 1961, the Lyons Circuit Court granted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the transfer of Rayborn to the federal authorities in September 1952 resulted in a waiver of jurisdiction by the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth has appealed under Sec. 429a-1 of the Criminal Code of Practice.
At the time Rayborn was transferred to Eddyville he was not paroled nor was he eligible for parole under subsection (3) of KRS 439.110. He was in custody under his conviction at the time he was surrendered to the federal authorities. As pointed out in the annotation, 147 A.L.R. 943, different questions arise when there is a surrender of a convict to authorities of another jurisdiction when the: (1) Convict is in custody; (2) convict is at liberty; (3) convict has been paroled. We are concerned, of course, with the first item.
People ex rel. Barrett v. Bartley, 383 Ill. 437, 50 N.E.2d 517, 521, 147 A.L.R. 935, is authority for the proposition that when a state honors the request of another state for the extradition of a convict who is serving a prison sentence without stipulation for his return, it thereby relinquishes jurisdiction to subject him to further punishment. In that case the convict was confined in the penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois for the crime of uttering a forged check. On April 20, 1936, without an application for a parole from the convict, the parole board in an ex parte proceeding on its part paroled him for the period of his term, the parole to become effective on May 16, 1936. On May 15, before the effective date of the parole, the Governor of Illinois honored a requisition from the State of Wisconsin and an extradition warrant authorizing his arrest and detention was issued. On May 16 he was delivered to the agent of the State of Wisconsin. He was there tried, convicted and served a term in the penitentiary until September 27, 1937. Upon his release he went to Ohio where he was again convicted, served a sentence and was released about June 24, 1940. While in Ohio the State of Illinois placed a detainer request with the prison authorities of Ohio. Extradition proceedings were instituted and he was returned to Illinois. He filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The appellate court being of the opinion that the original parole to become effective May 16, 1936, was a conditional one, since he was never released, but simply transferred to the Wisconsin authorities, concluded he should be treated as if he were still in custody on that day. It was pointed out that had he been extradited while absent from the prison and on parole, quite a different question would have been presented.
The court said:
...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State ex rel. Graves v. Williams
...cases which have employed an automatic waiver rule, such as In re Whittington, 34 Cal.App. 344, 167 P. 404 (1917), and Jones v. Rayborn, 346 S.W.2d 743 (Ky.1961), have been disapproved by subsequent cases in those jurisdictions. In re Patterson, 64 Cal.2d 357, 49 Cal.Rptr. 801, 411 P.2d 897......
-
Com. v. Hale
... ... Relying upon a "Forfeiture of Sentence Rule" ("forfeiture rule") announced in Jones v. Rayborn 1 and further defined in its progeny, both the Laurel Circuit Court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals held that Appellee was entitled to ... ...
-
Thompson v. Bannan
...re Jones, 154 Kan. 589, 121 P.2d 219, under similar facts it was held to be a commutation of sentence. The recent case of Jones v. Rayborn, 346 S.W.2d 743 (Kentucky), falls in the same category as the above two cases. This case was previously before our Court and reported at 282 F.2d 410 an......
-
Patterson, In re
...time, upon the theory that in agreeing to the transfer the state had impliedly waived its jurisdiction over him. (Accord, Jones v. Rayborn (Ky.1961) 346 S.W.2d 743; People ex rel. Barrett v. Bartley (1943) 383 Ill. 437, 50 N.E.2d 517, 147 A.L.R. 935.) However, In re Whittington has been cri......