McCormick v. Hunt

• Citation: 328 So.2d 140
• Decision Date: 23 February 1976
• Docket Number: No. 56907,56907
• Parties: John McCORMICK and Ernie Ray Clanton v. Elayn HUNT.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 140

328 So.2d 140

John McCORMICK and Ernie Ray Clanton v. Elayn HUNT.

No. 56907.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Feb. 23, 1976.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Ralph E. Tyson, Asst. Attys. Gen., Ossie Brown, Dist. Atty., James E. Boren, Asst. Dist. Atty., for defendants-relators.

Vincent Wilkins, Jr., Director, Benjamin E. Smith, New Orleans, Roland T. Huson, III, App. Counsel, Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-respondent.

DIXON, Justice.

We granted the State's application for writs in this case to review a ruling of the trial judge that the Department of Corrections must award prisoners 'good time' credits for 'jail time,' that is, time spent in a parish prison after arrest, but prior to conviction and sentence. We reverse.

R.S. 15:571.3 B provides:

'Every inmate in the custody of the Department of Corrections who has been convicted of a felony and sentenced to imprisonment for a stated number of years or months may earn a diminution of sentence by good behavior and performance of work or self improvement activities or both to be known as 'good time.' Those inmates serving life sentences will be credited with good time earned which will be applied toward diminution of their sentences at such time as the life sentences might be commuted to a specific number of years. The director of corrections shall establish procedures for awarding and recording of good time and shall determine when good time has been earned toward diminution of sentence. The amount of diminution of sentence allowed shall be as otherwise provided by law.'

The very words of the statute make it clear that it does not apply to time served in a parish prison after arrest while awaiting trial, since at that time the accused is not an 'inmate in the custody of the Department of Corrections who has been convicted of a felony and sentenced to imprisonment.' Therefore, unless some constitutional right mandates that 'good time' be awarded for jail time, there is no merit in petitioners' contentions.

Petitioners argue that the failure to award good time credits for jail time violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law, because an accused who can afford bail actually serves less time in jail than an accused who cannot afford bail.¹ This same argument was presented to the United States Supreme Court in McGinnis v. Royster, 410 U.S. 263, 93 S.Ct. 1055, 35 L.Ed.2d 282 (1973). In that case, New York did not award good time on jail time in computing the minimum date that an inmate could appear before the parole board. In reversing a lower court ruling that the state scheme violated the equal protection clause, the Supreme Court stated:

'. . . As the statute and regulations contemplate state evaluation of an inmate's progress toward rehabilitation, in awarding good time, it is reasonable not to award such time for pretrial detention in a county jail where no systematic rehabilitative programs exist and where the prisoner's conduct and performance are not even observed and evaluated by the responsible state prison officials. Further, it would hardly be appropriate for the State to undertake in the pretrial detention period programs to rehabilitate a man still clothed with a presumption of innocence. In short, an inmate in county jail is neither under the supervision of the State Correction Department nor participating in the State's rehabilitative programs. Where there is no evaluation by state officials and little or no rehabilitative participation for anyone to evaluate, there is a rational justification for declining to give good-time credit.' 410 U.S. 263, 271, 93 S.Ct. 1055, 1060, 35 L.Ed.2d 282.

The equal protection clause does not require absolute equality or precisely equal advantages. Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U.S. 600, 94 S.Ct. 2437, 41 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974). As stated in Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970):

'In the area of economics and social welfare, a State does not violate the Equal Protection Clause merely because the classifications made by its laws are imperfect. If the classification has some 'reasonable basis,' it does not offend the Constitution simply because the classification 'is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.' Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 78, 31 S.Ct. 337, 340, 55 L.Ed. 369. 'The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations-illogical, it may be, and unscientific.' Metropolis Theatre Co. v. City of Chicago, 228 U.S. 61, 69--70, 33 S.Ct. 441, 443, 57 L.Ed. 730. 'A statutory discrimination will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.' McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1105, 6 L.Ed.2d 393.'

The United States Supreme Court in Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220

U.S. 61, 78, 31 S.Ct. 337, 340, 55 L.Ed. 369 (1910), laid down the rules to be used in determining whether a legislative enactment violated the equal protection clause:

'The rules by which this contention must be tested, as is shown by repeated decisions of this court, are these: 1. The...