State Board of Administration v. Jones

• Decision Date: 18 December 1924
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 688
• Citation: 212 Ala. 380,102 So. 626
• Parties: STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION v. JONES.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

102 So. 626

212 Ala. 380

STATE BOARD OF ADMINISTRATION v. JONES.

3 Div. 688

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 18, 1924

Rehearing Denied Jan. 22, 1925

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Leon McCord, Judge.

Petition of Ben Jones for mandamus to the State Board of Administration. From a judgment awarding the writ, respondent appeals. Reversed and rendered.

Harwell G. Davis, Atty. Gen., for appellant.

R.T Goodwyn and C.P. McIntyre, both of Montgomery, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

The petitioner, who is a convict in the state prison, seeks by writ of mandamus to compel the state board of administration to certify to the Governor, as contemplated by section 5131 of the Code of 1923, that the conduct of the prisoner has been good during the years of his imprisonment--the purpose being to present to the Governor the true facts upon which his discretionary action may be invoked for the deduction of time from the petitioner's sentences.

Petitioner was convicted on December 12, 1916, in the criminal court of Jefferson county, in six separate cases, on charges of burglary, and in each case was separately sentenced to serve 2 years in the penitentiary, with provision that the several sentences should be served serially and cumulatively as numbered on the docket, each sentence to begin upon the expiration of the sentence preceding.

Petitioner's contention is that for the purpose of making deductions for good conduct, as authorized by the statute, the six 2-year periods for which he was sentenced must be aggregated and treated as a single continuous sentence for 12 years, in which event the authorized deductions would have ended his period of confinement on August 12, 1924, and have resulted in his discharge from the penitentiary on that date.

The contention of the respondent, the state board, on the other hand, is that the several sentences are separate and distinct, and cannot be treated as a single term in the aggregate; and that deductions must be made from each separate sentence, as it is served, as though it stood alone and not progressively as from a single 12-year sentence--the result being that petitioner's period of confinement would be extended to December 12, 1926.

The validity of these respective contentions depends upon the proper construction of section 5131 of the Code of 1923 (section 7514, Code 1907; section 5460, Code 1896), and counsel are agreed that that is the only contested question in the case--the facts being undisputed.

"Good conduct statutes are framed with the intention of improving prison discipline, and have that effect if their enforcement is allowed. The credits are said to be in the nature of a payment or reward by the state to the convict for his good behavior, in order to stimulate him to conform to the rules of the institution and to avoid the commission of crimes and misdemeanors during his imprisonment. Such statutes are prompted by the highest motives of humanity, and are looked on with favor both by state and Federal Legislatures." 21 R.C.L. 1192, § 26.

The first statute of this character in this state (Clay's Digest, p. 406, § 67), enacted in 1843, declared that it was "for the encouragement of the convicts to conduct themselves with industry and propriety." In construing these statutes this purpose should, of course, have appropriate consideration.

The question before us has not been heretofore considered by this court, and we find only a very few cases in other jurisdictions bearing upon the subject.

The pertinent provision of our statute (section 5131) is:

"Whenever the inspectors of convicts shall report to the Governor that the conduct of any convict in the penitentiary or at hard labor for the county, has been good during any year or years of his imprisonment, the Governor may, in his discretion, order a portion of the sentence of such convict to be deducted for each year of good conduct as follows. [ Here follows the scale of deductions, increasing progressively up to the eighth year.]"

This language, as very clearly appears, is properly applicable only to a single sentence of imprisonment, viz., the term which the convict is serving during the period of his good conduct. It could not be referable to other successive terms under separate sentences, because at any given time only one term is being served. This view is emphasized by a cognate provision of the Code (section 3615), that "when a convict is sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary on two or more convictions, the imprisonment on the second, and on each subsequent conviction, must commence at the expiration of the imprisonment on the preceding conviction." The practical result of petitioner's theory of deductions, when applied to his own case, would be to deduct nothing from the first four terms, and to wipe out the last two terms entirely.

We find only two cases in which cumulative sentences have been held to be continuous for the purpose of making deductions for good conduct, and those were based on the language of the statutes which is different from our own. In re Packer, 18 Colo. 525, 33 P. 578; Ex parte Dalton, 49 Cal. 463. In Colorado the statute expressly stated that separate sentences should be construed as one continuous sentence; and in California the statute provided for deductions as from "the entire term of penal servitude." Following that decision in California, the Legislature amended the statute by striking out the word "entire," and allowed credit commutations simply from the convict's "term."

In the...