Palka v. Walker

• Citation: 124 Conn. 121,198 A. 265
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Decision Date: 05 April 1938
• Parties: PALKA v. WALKER.

198 A. 265

124 Conn. 121

PALKA v. WALKER.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 5, 1938

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Edward J. Daly, Judge.

Application for a writ of habeas corpus by Frank J. Palka against Ralph H. Walker, alleging the illegal imprisonment of the plaintiff. The case was tried to the court. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals.

No error.

The constitutional provision giving the Governor power to grant reprieves after conviction only until the end of the next session of the General Assembly manifests the intent that the limit upon the period during which a reprieve may operate runs, not from the day of conviction, but from the time when the reprieve is issued, and hence successive reprieves, one of which was granted before the convening of the General Assembly, the second which was granted during that session and the third granted after the close of the session, did not exceed the power of the Governor so as to entitle an accused sentenced to be executed for murder, to be released on the ground that the time set for execution of the sentence had passed. Const. amend. 35; art 4, § 10.

Maurice A. Gruskay, of Waterbury, for appellant.

Lorin W. Willis, State's Atty., of Bridgeport for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, AVERY, BROWN, and JENNINGS, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

On October 15, §936, the plaintiff was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to be executed on February 15, 1937. He took an appeal to this court, and thereupon the Governor issued a reprieve which expired on May 26, 1937. The plaintiff's appeal to this court having been decided against him, State of Connecticut v. Palko, 122 Conn. 529, 191 A. 320, 113 A.L.R. 628, he filed with the Chief Justice a petition for an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which was allowed, 58 S.Ct. 20, 82 L.Ed. --, and as incident thereto execution of the sentence was stayed until December 15, 1937. On May 12, 1937, the Governor granted a further reprieve also expiring on December 15, 1937. The plaintiff's appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was decided adversely to him on December 6, 1937, 58 S.Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288, but under the rules of that court a mandate under the decision would not issue for twenty-five days thereafter. Accordingly, on December 10, 1937, the Governor issued a further reprieve which would expire on February 1, 1938, and a warrant issued for execution of sentence on that day. In this proceeding the claim of the plaintiff is that the Governor had no power to grant any reprieve for a longer period than the end of the session of the General Assembly next after the conviction of the accused, which would be the General Assembly convening in January, 1937, and which, under the 35th Amendment to the Constitution was required to adjourn without day on the Wednesday after the first Monday in June of that year; that therefore the reprieve granted to the plaintiff on December 10, 1937, until February 1, 1938, was unlawful; and that, the time legally set for the execution of sentence having passed, the plaintiff is now unlawfully confined.

Our Constitution provides: ‘ The Governour shall have power to grant reprieves after conviction, in all cases except those of impeachment, until the end of the next session of the General Assembly, and no longer.’ Article 4, § 10. It contains no express authority to any person or body to grant pardons or commutations of sentence. For many years previous to its adoption the statutes had provided ‘ that the General Court only shall have power, upon the grounds to them satisfying, to grant pardons, suspensions, and gaol delivery upon reprieve, in capital and criminal cases, unto any person or persons that have been sentenced in any other court whatever in this State.’ Statutes of 1808, p. 202. After the adoption of the Constitution the statutes were revised and many laws were repealed or omitted, among them the one we have quoted. No doubt the reason for this was that the powers included in the statute were considered to be within the general provision which vested the legislative power in the General Assembly. This is apparent from the fact that an examination of the special acts of the General Assembly from 1837 when they were first printed in an unabridged form, until the establishment of the board of pardons in 1883, shows that at every session clemency was extended by the General Assembly to prisoners. The acts usually took the form of releases or discharges from prison or jail; but in at least three instances, in two of which the prisoners were apparently awaiting trial, pardons were granted; in several instances sentences to death were commuted to life imprisonment; in one instance the time for execution of a death penalty was postponed for a few months; and in one the basis of a resolution restoring the forfeited rights of a prisoner released from prison by a contemporaneous resolution was expressly stated to be that the General Assembly had found him innocent of the crime charged. The thought in the minds of the makers of the Constitution in giving the Governor the power to grant reprieves until the end of the next session of the General Assembly was evidently that if, upon the facts before him, he believed that the General Assembly should have an opportunity to determine whether to extend clemency to a prisoner beyond a merely temporary stay of execution, a reprieve might be granted until the Assembly had had an opportunity to act in the matter.

On the other hand, the limitation that a reprieve could be granted only to the end of the next session of the General Assembly was evidently because the reprieve was intended to operate only until the General Assembly had had a full opportunity to consider the matter. The word ‘ next’ in the constitutional provision does not refer to a session of the General Assembly in existence when a reprieve is granted but to one which begins thereafter. French v. Barnard, 63 Mass. 403,9 Cush. 403; Town of Shelburn v Eldridge, 10 Vt. 123, 125; State v. Breaw, 45 Or. 586, 588, 78 P. 896; Heywood v. State, 125 Ga. 262, 264, 54 S.E. 187. A reprieve properly granted during a session of the Legislature may run until the end of the first session which thereafter convenes. In the case before us the first reprieve, granted before the convening of the General Assembly of 1937, expired before the end of that session; the second reprieve, granted during the session,...