Taylor v. Commonwealth, Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole

388 A.2d 777, 36 Pa. Commw. 625, 1978 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1202
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 19, 1978
DocketNo. 295 Miscellaneous Docket
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 388 A.2d 777 (Taylor v. Commonwealth, Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Taylor v. Commonwealth, Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 388 A.2d 777, 36 Pa. Commw. 625, 1978 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1202 (Pa. Ct. App. 1978).

Opinion

Opinion by

Judge Crumlish, Jr.,

"We have before us the preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (Board) to the petition for writ of mandamus, which we have treated as a petition for review.

The relevant facts are not in dispute. On December 17,1959, Andrew Taylor (Petitioner) was convicted in Philadelphia County of aggravated robbery and assault with intent to kill. He was sentenced consecutively to eight to sixteen years for the robbery count and three and one-half to seven years for the assault count. Following his conviction, Petitioner was returned to New Jersey to complete a sentence which he had been serving there. On May 2, 1960, he completed the New Jersey sentence and was transferred to Pennsylvania’s Eastern State Penitentiary to begin serving the sentence imposed on December 17, 1959. Upon his arrival at Eastern State, prison records officials aggregated Petitioner’s two consecutive sentences to form one sentence of 11% to 23 years, i.e., they combined the two minimums and combined the two máximums. The officials recorded the effective date of that sentence as May 2, 1960, with minimum expiring November 2, 1971 and maximum expiring May 2, 1983. Petitioner was released on parole on February 14, 1972 having served 11 years, 9 months, 12 days.

On March 30,1974, Petitioner was arrested on multiple charges, including robbery, rape and burglary; the Board filed a parole violation warrant three days later. Following a hearing, the Board ordered Petitioner detained pending disposition of the criminal charges.

[627]*627Petitioner was subsequently convicted and sentenced on June 6, 1975, to concurrent terms of 10 to 20 years for robbery and five to 10 years for criminal conspiracy. Following the convictions, Petitioner was afforded a Full Board Eevocation Hearing, as a result of which he was recommitted to his 1959 sentence as a convicted parole violator; his backtime on that sentence was computed by the Board to be 11 years, two months, 18 days and his maximum modified to August 24, 1986. However, simultaneously with the recommitment, the Board reparoled Petitioner to begin serving the 1975 sentence,1 for which the Board recorded an effective date of June 3, 1975,2 a minimum expiration date of June 3, 1985 and maximum expiration date of June 3,, 1995. Petitioner is currently serving that sentence.

Petitioner raises several issues with respect to the computation of his sentences. First, he alleges that his 1959 sentences should be deemed to have begun to run [628]*628from the date of their imposition, i.e., December 17, 1959, not from May 2, 1960, the date of his transfer from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, because, he alleges, the Pennsylvania sentences ran concurrently with the unexpired term of the New Jersey sentence. At the time of his sentencing, this question was controlled by the Act of May 28,1937, P.L. 1036, as amended, 19 P.S. §894, which provided:

Prom and after the passage of this act, all sentences for criminal offenses of persons who at the time sentence is imposed are held in custody in default of bail, or otherwise, shall begin to run and be computed from the date of commitment for the offense for which said sentence shall be imposed, unless the person sentenced shall then be undergoing imprisonment under a sentence imposed for any other offense or offenses, in which case the said sentence shall begin to run and be computed, either from the date of imposition thereof or from the expiration of such other sentence or sentences, as the court shall, in its discretion, direct.

In interpreting that Act, our Superior Court has ruled that sentences by different courts for different offenses, to be served at separate and distinct institutions, are presumed consecutive in the absence of an express indication to the contrary in the second sentence. Commonwealth ex rel. Pitts v. Myers, 196 Pa. Superior Ct. 277, 175 A.2d 331 (1961). See also Commonwealth ex rel. Speese v. Keenan, 199 Pa. Superior Ct. 144, 184 A.2d 386 (1962); Commonwealth ex rel. Coffman v. Kennan, 198 Pa. Superior Ct. 80, 182 A.2d 288 (1962). The opposite presumption — i.e., that the sentences are concurrent- — is raised when the sentences are imposed by the same court to the same institution. Litselman Appeal, 207 Pa. Superior Ct. 374, 217 A.2d 838 (1966); Commonwealth ex rel. Money v. Maroney, [629]*629202 Pa. Superior Ct. 505, 198 A.2d 380 (1964). Since the sentencing judge in Pennsylvania did not order that the sentence he was imposing be served concurrently with Petitioner’s New Jersey sentence, the two are consecutive, and the effective date of the Pennsylvania sentences was properly entered as May 2, 1960.

Petitioner next contends that his 1975 court-imposed sentence for robbery and his recommitment by the Board to his 1959 term, for violation of his parole, should run concurrently, and should commence with the date of his re-arrest on March 30, 1974, and thus that he is entitled to approximately 14 months credit on his 1975 sentence. We do not agree. We have held that, under Section 21.1(a) of the Act of August 6, 1941, P.L. 861, as amended, 61 P.S. §331.21 (a) (Act), where a parolee is convicted of a crime while on parole, the remainder of the original sentence and the new sentence must run consecutively. Young v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 29 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 268, 370 A.2d 813 (1977). Therefore, the Board did not err in entering the effective date of his new sentence as June 3, 1975. However, it did err in failing to give him credit toward the backtime on his original sentence, for approximately 14 months of incarceration from April 2,1974, the date the Board filed its parole violation warrant, to June 6, 1975, the date of his sentencing on the new charges. It is clear that in computing that backtime to be 11 years, two months, 18 days, the Board simply subtracted the time Petitioner served before his parole on February 14, 1972 (11 years, 9 months, 12 days) from the 23 year maximum. The Board did not deduct the 14 months in question from either the backtime on the original sentence or from the term of the new sentence.3 Since [630]*630Petitioner’s 14-month incarceration flowed from the Board’s April 2, 1974 filing of a parole violation warrant and its May 3, 1974 action detaining Petitioner pending the outcome of the new criminal charges, the time spent incarcerated awaiting trial and sentencing on the new charges must be credited toward the back-time on the original sentence.4 Mitchell v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 31 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 243, 375 A.2d 902 (1977). The Board concedes this point in its brief and states that, in light of Mitchell,

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Bluebook (online)
388 A.2d 777, 36 Pa. Commw. 625, 1978 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 1202, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/taylor-v-commonwealth-pennsylvania-board-of-probation-and-parole-pacommwct-1978.