People v. Tobin

PLUMMER, J.

This application comes before us upon an appeal by the People from an order of the Superior Court of Sacramento County granting a writ of

habeas corpus.

The record shows that the petitioner, John J. Tobin, was received at Folsom prison on the eleventh day of November, 1925, by virtue of a judgment of conviction of first degree robbery entered in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Thereafter the board of prison directors imposed a sentence upon the petitioner of a term of twelve years; on the eleventh day of July, 1931, the petitioner was granted a parole, effective immediately; on the fifteenth

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day of September, 1931, the petitioner was arrested and returned to the state prison at Folsom; on September 20, 1931, the board of prison terms and paroles, at its meeting in Folsom, ordered the petitioner back to prison, and thereupon he was again placed in custody within the prison walls at Folsom. On the twenty-ninth day of September, 1931, there was served on the said John J. Tobin a copy of charges preferred by the warden of the state prison at Folsom, charging him with altering certain prisoners’ records while acting as an assistant to the clerk in the record clerk’s office at Folsom prison, which alterations were made prior to July 11, 1931. Thereafter, and on October 7, 1931, after due notice had been given thereof, a hearing was had by the board of prison terms and paroles, at which hearing the petitioner pleaded guilty to the change of the records of Folsom prison, as charged by the warden thereof, and at said hearing all the credits that the said petitioner had earned, and that he might thereafter earn, were declared forfeited and canceled.

The facts upon which the petitioner was re-arrested, his parole rescinded and his credits declared forfeited are based upon the admitted charge that while employed as an assistant to the record clerk of the state prison at Folsom, the petitioner falsified the records as to certain prisoners confined in Folsom prison.

Upon this hearing it is contended that the petitioner could only be re-arrested, his credits forfeited and his person confined within the walls of Folsom prison by a violation of some of the terms of his probation as specified in the list of rules for his future conduct read and delivered to the petitioner upon the granting of his parole.