Laden v. Warden, Connecticut Correctional Inst.

Citation169 Conn. 540,363 A.2d 1063
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
Decision Date16 September 1975
PartiesWilliam LADEN v. WARDEN, CONNECTICUT CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, Somers.

Richard S. Cramer, Hartford, for appellant (plaintiff).

Stephen J. O'Neill, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom, on the brief, was Carl R. Ajello, Atty. Gen., for appellee (defendant).

Before HOUSE, C.J., and LOISELLE, MacDONALD, LONGO and BARBER, JJ.

LONGO, Associate Justice.

During the period from June 30, 1972, to November 2, 1972, the plaintiff was confined in the Community Correctional Center, New Haven, pursuant to writs of mittimus on charges which culminated in sentences of confinement. The writs of mittimus had issued because the petitioner, an indigent, was unable to deposit bail. Because the plaintiff committed two separate infractions of jail regulations, the commissioner of corrections ordered that a total of sixty days of presentence confinement credit, commonly referred to as 'jail time,' be deducted from the prisoner's account. The plaintiff thereupon filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that he had been deprived of his rights guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution. The court dismissed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and the plaintiff has appealed therefrom.

This court in Holmquist v. Manson, 168 Conn. 389, 362 A.2d 971 distinguished between 'good time' and 'jail time' under Connecticut statutes. General Statutes § 18-7 provides for 'good time'; that is, where there has been good behavior, there may be a commutation of the total length of sentence that must be served. 'Good time' credit may be earned during time served prior to sentencing or during time served after sentencing. On the other hand, General Statutes §§ 18-97 and 18-98 provide 'jail time' credit only for time served by the detainee prior to sentencing. 1 'Jail time' statutes permit the commissioner to refuse credit for time served prior to sentencing if the detainee fails to conform to the rules of the institution. There exists no such authority by which the commissioner may refuse to credit a prisoner with time served after sentencing. As noted in Holmquist, supra, the statutory scheme provides, in effect, that an indigent unable to raise bail, or any other person incarcerated, pursuant to a mittimus, is able to commence serving sentence prior to sentencing. See Mancinone v. Warden, 162 Conn. 430, 294 A.2d 564.

I

The plaintiff claims that the proviso in §§ 18-97 and 18-98 of the General Statutes that jail time may be credited toward sentence only if the prisoner conforms to the rules of the institution violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution. Equal protection analysis must commence with a determination of whether a legislative classification is invidious, or 'inherently suspect,' or whether the legislation impinges upon a fundamental right. Where the legislation impinges upon a fundamental right or creates a suspect classification then it must be struck down unless justified by a compelling state interest. Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 335, 342, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274. Where the statute does not involve fundamental rights or suspect classifications, the legislation will withstand constitutional attack if the distinction is founded on a rational basis. McGinnis v. Royster, 410 U.S. 263, 270, 93 S.Ct. 1055, 35 L.Ed.2d 282; Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 484, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491; F. S. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415, 40 S.Ct. 560, 64 L.Ed. 989; In re Application of Griffiths, 162 Conn. 249, 258, 294 A.2d 281, rev'd, 413 U.S. 717, 93 S.Ct. 2851, 37 L.Ed.2d 910; see Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 358, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811.

The plaintiff claims that General Statutes §§ 18-97 and 18-98 discriminate against indigents by permitting the commissioner to refuse to credit a detainee with time served if the detainee fails to obey the rules of the institution, that indigency is a suspect classification, and that legislation based on that classification must be stricken unless it is based upon a compelling state interest. 2 The plaintiff had been sentenced to a term for certain crimes. Had he been possessed of sufficient means, he would have commenced serving that sentence when confined upon termination of his bail after sentencing. Instead, the plaintiff, an indigent, by force of a court order was confined prior to sentencing. There is no question that his sentence could not be lengthened by the commissioner of correction after sentencing. However, by vesting the commissioner with authority to refuse to credit to a detainee time served prior to sentencing, the statutes operate to clothe the indigent with a vulnerability to longer confinement which his wealthier counterpart is not obliged to wear. 3

The refusal to credit the plaintiff with jail time affects the period of his confinement and directly impinges on his fundamental right of liberty. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368; Brenneman v. Madigan, 343 F.Supp. 128, 138 (N.D.Cal.). Hence his lengthened confinement must be justified by a compelling state interest. See Bolling v. Manson, 345 F.Supp. 48, 51 (D.Conn.). As the United States Supreme Court noted in McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 191, 85 S.Ct. 283, 288, 13 L.Ed.2d 222, our inquiry must go further. 'Judicial inquiry under the Equal Protection Clause . . . does not end with a showing of equal application among the members of the class defined by the legislation. The courts must reach and determine the question whether the classifications drawn in a statute are reasonable in light of its purpose.' See Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U.S. 305, 309, 86 S.Ct. 1497, 16 L.Ed.2d 577.

II

The statutes under consideration do not meet the tests required by the equal protection clause enumerated above for several reasons. They are underinclusive; Vaccarella v. Fusari, 365 F.Supp. 1164, 1170 (D.Conn.); see note, 'Developments in the Law-Equal Protection,' 82 Harv.L.Rev. 1065, 1082-87; in that they do not reach all prisoners who do not conform to the rules of the institution, but only detainees. Secondly, they create irrational classifications: e.g., persons who are convicted and who, on appeal, secure a remand are placed in a better position than those awaiting trial; infractors of the institution's rules who are eventually acquitted are not reached by the statutes; convicted prisoners who have been sentenced receive more favorable treatment than detainees.

A prisoner whose appear is sustained and who is again convicted upon remand is no different from a prisoner awaiting initial trial and sentencing, because both are incarcerated awaiting sentencing and a proper disposition of their case. It is constitutionally mandated that the 'one time loser' receives credit for time served without permitting discretion by sentencing authorities. Pruett v. Texas, 468 F.2d 51, 55 (5th Cir.), aff'd en banc, 470 F.2d 1182 (5th Cir.), aff'd, 414 U.S. 802, 94 S.Ct. 118, 38 L.Ed.2d 39; Wilson v. North Carolina, 438 F.2d 284 (4th Cir.); Valdez v. State, 479 S.W.2d 927 (Tex.Crim.App.). The state's position that credit for time served is not constitutionally mandated in the case of detainees, would require credit to a prisoner once convicted with time served, but permit the state to refuse to credit a person yet unconvicted. Ex parte Freeman, 486 S.W.2d 556 (Tex.Crim.App.); Valdez v. State, supra.

Further, detainees awaiting trial must be considered innocent. Confinement is not to be punitive in nature; its purpose is only to preserve order and discipline and to guarantee that detainees will be available for trial. Seale v. Manson, 326 F.Supp. 1375, 1379 (D.Conn.); Butler v. Crumlish, 229 F.Supp. 565, 567, 568 (E.D.Pa.), injunction denied on other grounds, 237 F.Supp. 58 (E.D.Pa.); see Jones v. Wittenberg, 323 F.Supp. 93, 100 (N.D.Ohio), aff'd sub nom. Jones v. Metzger, 456 F.2d 854 (6th Cir.). The framework set out in the statutes, however, results in greater protections for the convicted and sentenced prisoner in that his stay in prison may not be lengthened, but the presumably innocent detainee's stay may eventually be prolonged. See Rhem v. Malcolm, 371 F.Supp. 594, 623 (S.D.N.Y.), aff'd, 507 F.2d 333 (2d Cir.).

The statute also creates two classes of confined prisoners awaiting trial. It allows the commissioner to punish for infraction of prison regulations those who eventually are convicted but cannot reach those who are eventually acquitted, even if both are guilty of the identical infraction of prison regulations. In the first case, the prisoner's sentence may thereby be administratively extended, and for acts which may not constitute violations of the General Statutes. The prisoner who is acquitted, however, cannot be punished for offenses committed in prison, unless they were also in violation of the General Statutes, and only after resort to judicial process, with the entire range of constitutional safe-guards inherent thereto. 'Yet it would be absurd to hold that a pre-trial detainee has less constitutional protection . . . than one who has been convicted.' Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1032 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1033, 94 S.Ct. 462, 38 L.Ed.2d 324.

III

It is true that the maintenance of discipline in a prison constitutes a compelling state interest. However, the method chosen must be rationally connected to the end sought and must be within the constitutionally prescribed limitations with respect to the presentenced detainee. See Stapf v. United States, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 100, 367 F.2d 326, 329; see Wolff v. McDonnell 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935. Presentenced detainees have all the constitutional rights of members of society except those incident to their custody for safekeeping prior to judgment. Collins v. Schoonfield, 344 F.Supp. 257 (D.Md.). There...

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