Riddle, In re

• Decision Date: 11 March 1966
• Docket Number: Cr. 4045
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: In re Oscar Lee RIDDLE on Habeas Corpus.

Page 919

49 Cal.Rptr. 919

240 Cal.App.2d 707

In re Oscar Lee RIDDLE on Habeas Corpus.

Cr. 4045.

District Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

March 11, 1966.

Rehearing Denied April 5, 1966.

Hearing Denied May 4, 1966.

Lawrence Goldstein, Sacramento, court appointed counsel, for petitioner.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., by Doris Maier, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Theodore T. N. Slocum, Deputy Atty. Gen., Sacramento, for respondent.

REGAN, Justice.

Petitioner is a prisoner at Folsom State Prison. He seeks a writ of habeas corpus to secure his delivery to the prison authorities of the State of Oklahoma, there to complete a partially served Oklahoma prison sentence.

Petitioner's confinement at Folsom is pursuant to a valid judgment of commitment by the El Dorado County Superior Court for the crime of attempted armed robbery. The judgment of commitment provides that petitioner's sentence shall be served concurrently with any prior incompleted sentence. Petitioner raises no questions as to the validity of the El Dorado County judgment of commitment. He contends that the respondent warden of Folsom Prison is not the person authorized by law to imprison or have custody of him. He claims that at the time of his California sentence he was and still is wanted as a fugitive by the Oklahoma State Parole Authorities for violation of a 'life term parole.' Oklahoma considers petitioner a 'parole violator whose parole has been revoked' and seeks his return there to continue service on a life sentence at such time as he is made available by California.

Respondent concedes that petitioner is entitled to be made available for delivery to Oklahoma for the purpose of providing him the benefit of the concurrent running of his sentences in California and Oklahoma. However, respondent contends he lacks jurisdiction to administratively transfer petitioner without an order of a court directing him to do so.

'Under the so-called 'Stoliker rule' established by California case law [In re Stoliker, 49 Cal.2d 75, 78, 315 P.2d 12], a California prisoner is entitled to be made available for delivery to the prison authorities of another jurisdiction, if his California commitment expressly decrees that the California sentence shall run concurrently with an unexpired sentence in the other jurisdiction.' (In re Portwood, 236 A.C.A. 344, 346, 45 Cal.Rptr. 862, 863.) This rule also applies where the sentencing judge has knowledge of the unexpired sentence in the other jurisdiction. (In re Alstatt, 227 Cal.App.2d 305, 307, 38 Cal.Rptr. 616, quoted in In re Portwood, supra.) Pursuant to the provisions of section 669 of the Penal Code and California case law, petitioner at the time of sentencing by the El Dorado County Court was entitled to be made available for delivery to the Oklahoma authorities, so that the remaining time under his Oklahoma sentence will be credited to his California sentence. The California Director of Corrections is authorized and directed by Penal Code section 2900 ¹ to designate a California institution to which petitioner may be returned, if his Oklahoma confinement ends before the expiration of his California sentence.

'It is well established that habeas corpus is the proper remedy to secure confinement under the proper authority.' (In re Stoliker, supra, 49 Cal.2d 75, 78, 315 P.2d 12, 14.)

Unless petitioner is transferred to the Oklahoma authorities for the purpose of serving his Oklahoma sentence that portion of the California judgment of conviction providing that his state sentence should run concurrently with...