Jarman v. United States

92 F.2d 309, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 4558
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 27, 1937
Docket4191
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 92 F.2d 309 (Jarman v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jarman v. United States, 92 F.2d 309, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 4558 (4th Cir. 1937).

Opinion

HENRY H. WATKINS, District Judge.

This is an appeal from an order of the court below dismissing appellant’s petition for release on writ of habeas corpus from the District of Columbia Reformatory at Lorton, Va. The petition was filed on December 7, 1936. The facts as alleged in the petition are admitted in the return and only conclusions of law are in controversy. Jarman, after being convicted of house-breaking and larceny, was sentenced on January 19, 1928, by the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, to imprisonment in the penitentiary for ten years. The designated place of his confinement was the District of Columbia Reformatory, at Lorton, Va. Under the law in effect at that time (18 U.S.C.A. § 710) his sentence, if credited with good-time allowance, would have expired on October 3, 1934. On January 25, 1932, he was granted a parole by the Federal Board of Parole under the authority of section 716, title 18 U.S.C.A. At that time there was no separate Parole Board for the District of Columbia, but on July 3, 1932, Congress created a Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole for the District of Columbia. 47 Stat., 696, chapter 492, Sections 1 to 7 and 9; Supplement II to the District of Columbia Code, title 6, §§ 451-458. In granting the parole the Board imposed certain statutory and regulatory conditions, among which were *310 that the prisoner should remain in the limits of the District of Columbia and also that he would abide by certain conditions set out in an agreement which he signed, one of which was that he would live and remain at liberty without violating the law. On August 1, 1934, while on parole, ‘Jarman was arrested on a charge of forgery and confined in the Washington, D. C., asylum and jail where he remained, except for brief trips to court in the custody of the marshal, until the 21st day of February, 1935, when he was transferred to the District of Columbia Reformatory at Lorton, Va. A presentment and indictment was filed against him on said charge on October 31, 1934, and on November 9, 1934, he was arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty. The case was called for trial on January 23, 1935, and the following day a verdict of guilty was returned by the jury. Motion for a new trial was argued and overruled on February 1st and, on March 12th, Jarman was sentenced to the penitentiary for one year to one year and six months to take effect upon expiration of the ten-year sentence imposed on January 19, 1928. Meanwhile on the 31st of January, 1935, the chairman of the United States Board of Parole issued his warrant for the arrest of Jarman, reciting therein that satisfactory evidence had been presented that the prisoner had violated his parole and declaring him to be a fugitive from justice. On the'4th day of February the director of the Bureau of Prisons designated the District of Columbia Reformatory at Lorton, Va., as the place for the further confinement of Jar-man. On March 5, 1935, at the said District of Columbia Reformatory, where he was then a prisoner, Jarman was given a persona] hearing on his alleged violation of parole by and before the Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole for the District of Columbia, all members being present, and, Jarman then having already been convicted on a new charge, the Board entered an order revoking his parole. Although then in custody and personally present, Jarman did not then file any objection to the hearing, did not raise any issue as to the illegality of his arrest or as to-any irregularity in the proceedings, nor did he subsequently take any appeal from the decision. However, after a lapse of more than a year and nine months, a period exceeding the sentence in the forgery case, he filed his petition for habeas corpus as above stated, based upon three legal grounds, briefly stated as follows: (1) That the warrant of arrest was not supported by oath or affirmation as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. (2) That the Federal Board of Parole, which issued the warrant, had lost its authority over the petitioner because of the creation of the Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole for the District of Columbia. (3) That the Parole Board at the time of issuing the warrant had lost jurisdiction because the sentence expired on October 3, 1934, and the warrant was not, issued until January 31, 1935. The District Judge denied the prayer of and dismissed the petition in a-general formal order without setting, forth his specific reasons therefor. The appeal charges that the District Judge committed error (1) in holding that the warrant issued by the Federal Board of Parole for violation of parole conditions is not required to be supported by oath of affirmation; (2) in holding that the Federal Parole Board had authority, after the creation of the Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole, to issue the warrant of arrest; and (3) in holding that the Board of Indeterminate Sentence and Parole had jurisdiction to revoke the parole on the warrant of arrest issued by the Federal Board of Parole. In appellant’s brief it is stated that the contention set forth in the petition that the minimum sentence expired on October 3, 1934, and, as the warrant was not issued until January 31, 1935, that the action of the Board was void as he was then released from parole, is a contention not argued before the lower court and is not presented in this appeal.

Appellant does not deny, indeed he maintains, that the new Board after its creation had jurisdiction both to issue the warrant for the arrest of Jarman for his alleged violation of the parole, and after a proper hearing to revoke the parole for good reason shown. If, therefore, the circumstances of the case show that irrespective of the manner of, and the authority for, issuing the warrant, Jarman had a fair hearing and that he is now foreclosed of raising the issue as to the regularity of, or authority for issuing the warrant, because of his failure to make timely objection thereto, or because of his failure after the decision of the Board to prosecute an appeal therefrom, all other questions become moot. And, we are oí *311 opinion that the issues thus presented have been conclusively-determined by numerous decisions of the courts, and particularly by the case of United States ex rel. Rowe v. Nicholson, Superintendent, etc. (C.C.A.4) 78 F.(2d) 468, 471. Here it was held that a delay of almost a year in making objection to alleged informality in the hearing on the question of revoking his parole amounted to acquiescence in the procedure followed. It was also held that in a habeas corpus proceeding it was not competent to attack the formal certificate of the Board, which recited that a hearing was given and the parole revoked, because this would constitute a collateral attack on such certificate. There, as here, the Parole Board was not a party to the habeas corpus proceeding and so far as the record discloses had no notice of its pendency. As the court said in Rowe’s Case, “It would promote confusion in the administration of the parole law to permit such collateral attacks on the Board’s formal action.” In that case petitioner alleged that only one member of the Parole Board was present at the hearing accorded him and that the subsequent revocation of his parole by the entire Board was in his absence and over his objection. In the instant case, Jarman admittedly was given a personal hearing before the entire Board and, instead of waiting less than a year as in Rowe’s Case, he waited a little over a year and nine months before raising any issue or taking any action whatever.

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Bluebook (online)
92 F.2d 309, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 4558, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jarman-v-united-states-ca4-1937.