McCoy v. Reid

87 N.E. 1086, 172 Ind. 182, 1909 Ind. LEXIS 21
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedApril 20, 1909
DocketNo. 21,421
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 87 N.E. 1086 (McCoy v. Reid) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McCoy v. Reid, 87 N.E. 1086, 172 Ind. 182, 1909 Ind. LEXIS 21 (Ind. 1909).

Opinion

Jordan, C. J.

Appellant, a prisoner in the Indiana State Prison, petitioned the Laporte Superior Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus against appellee, James D. Réid, warden of said prison. By virtue of said writ he sought to secure his discharge from the alleged unlawful restraint and imprisonment by said warden, upon the grounds set forth in his petition. The writ was granted by the court, and thereby appellee was commanded to have the body of appellant, Thomas J. McCoy, before the court at the time and place therein fixed. In obedience to the command appellee produced appellant before the court, and thereupon filed a written motion to quash the writ, alleging, as reasons therefor, among others, the following: (1) Because the complaint upon which said writ of habeas corpus was issued does not state facts sufficient to-authorize the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus; (2) because it appears from the averments of the complaint upon which said writ of habeas corpus was issued that Thomas J. McCoy, the person named in the complaint, was detained in the Indiana State Prison, at the time the writ was applied for and issued, under a judgment of the White Circuit Court. The court sustained the motion of appellee and quashed the writ, to which appellant at the time excepted, and thereupon the court rendered judgment against him, to which he also excepted. Prom this judgment he appeals to [184]*184this court, and assigns as errors the ruling of the court in quashing the writ of habeas corpus and rendering judgment against him in favor of appellee.

1. The facts in this case, briefly stated, appear to be as follows : Appellant was tried in the White Circuit Court upon an indictment by a grand jury, charging him with having violated a criminal statute of this State in having received and accepted a deposit of money in a bank in this State of which he was an officer at a time when such bank was insolvent, whereby said bank deposit was lost to the depositor. On June 19, 1906, he was convicted and sentenced by the White Circuit Court to be imprisoned in the Indiana State Prison for an indeterminate time of not less than one year nor more than three years; these periods of imprisonment being respectively the minimum and maximum for a violation of said statute. By virtue of said sentence and judgment in the White Circuit Court he was, on June 21,1906, confined as a prisoner in the Indiana State Prison, located at Michigan City, Laporte county, Indiana, and has been so confined in said prison from that day forward, not having been paroled nor pardoned. Since his commitment he shows that he has performed in a faithful manner the duties assigned to him, and that no infraction of the rules and regulations of the prison and laws of the State has been recorded against him. He claims in his petition that, by reason of such facts, and his good behavior generally, he is entitled to six months’ diminution of time, to be deducted from his sentence of three years, and that by reason thereof the period of his maximum imprisonment expired on December 19, 1908, and that since this latter date he has been unlawfully restrained of his liberty by appellee, the warden of said prison. He predicates his right to a discharge upon the provisions of the act of March 8, 1883, entitled “An act concerning the behavior and time of convicts in the State Prison and the Indiana Reformatory for Women and Girls.” Acfe 1883, p. 191, §9886 et seq. Burns 1908, His contention [185]*185is that he is restrained and detained in said Indiana State Prison by appellee, as warden thereof, upon the assumption that the aforesaid act of March 8, 1883, is not in force, but was repealed by the indeterminate sentence law of 1897. It is admitted that the offense of which appellant was convicted was committed by him long after the passage of both of the indeterminate sentence statutes, one of which applied to the Indiana Reformatory, and was approved February 26, 1897 (Acts 1897, p. 69, §8253b et seq. Bums 1897), and the other, which was applicable to the Indiana State Prison, was approved March 8, 1897 (Acts 1897, p. 219, §§1906a, 8230-8232 Burns 1901). Each of these acts went into effect on April 1, 1897.

The first section of the good behavior statute (§9886, supra) provides that “every convict who is now in, or who may hereafter be confined in, the penitentiaries of the State of Indiana, or in the Indiana Reformatory for Women and Girls, and who shall have no infractions of the rules or regulations of the prisons or laws of the State recorded against him, and who performs in a faithful manner the duties assigned him, shall be entitled to the diminution of time from his sentence as appears in the following table for the respective years of his sentence, and pro raía for any part of a year when the sentence is for more or less than a year.” Here follows a table, setting forth the time to be allowed to the convict and deducted from his sentence. First year, one month; second year, two months, and so on.

Section two (§9887, supra) provides that “in ease any convict shall knowingly violate any of the rules or laws of the penitentiaries of the State, as above provided, and who is entitled to any diminution of his sentence by the provision aforesaid, he shall forfeit, for the first offense [if he has gained that much], two days; for the second offense, four days; * * * and for more than four offenses, the warden shall have the power, at his discretion, to deprive him of any promotion for all of the good time gained.”

[186]*186Section three (§9888, supra) provides that “the warden, in computing the diminution of the time of those convicts now in the penitentiaries, shall allow them the good time granted for the years or year, or part of a year, of their unexpired sentence.”

By an act approved March 1, 1899 (Acts 1899, p. 174, §9880 Burns 1908), the legislature declared that the act approved March 8, 1897, supra—being the indeterminate act in respect to the state prison—should apply and extend to all persons imprisoned in the state prison, whether imprisoned therein before or after the taking effect of said act of March 8, 1897. Counsel for appellant contend that there is no repugnance or conflict between the indeterminate statute of 1897, supra, and the good time or commutation act of 1883, supra. Therefore, they insist that the latter act is not repealed, but is in full force and effect and controls in the case at bar*. They argue that the statutes providing, as does the good behavior act of 1883, supra, for a commutation of the sentence of the prisoner or reduction of the time of imprisonment on account of his good behavior while in prison, enter into and become part of the judgment of conviction, and in support of this contention they cite Woodward v. Murdock (1890), 124 Ind. 439, 444; Ex parte Wadleigh (1890), 82 Cal. 518, 23 Pac. 190; Opinion of Justices (1859), 13 Gray 618; In re Canfield (1894), 98 Mich. 644, 57 N. W. 807; Murphy v. Commonwealth (1899), 172 Mass. 264, 52 N. E. 505, 43 L. R. A. 154, 70 Am. St. 266.

Upon this view of the question counsel further contend that the indeterminate sentence law cannot be held to have repealed the good behavior statute of 1883, for if such repeal applied to prisoners whose crimes were committed before the enactment of the indeterminate sentence law, but who were tried and convicted after it went into force and effect, it would be, as to them, ex post facto, and therefore unconstitutional.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
87 N.E. 1086, 172 Ind. 182, 1909 Ind. LEXIS 21, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccoy-v-reid-ind-1909.