Ex Parte Dalton (1875) · DecisionDepot

Ex Parte Dalton

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Jul 1, 1875 No. No. 10,146Published

Before: Wallace

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Holding. For a prisoner sentenced to consecutive terms, the "entire term of penal servitude" for calculating good behavior credits is the sum of all sentences, and such credits must be applied to the end of that total period.

Issues

Whether good behavior credits should be calculated based on individual sentences or the aggregate of consecutive sentences.
At what point in a cumulative sentence good behavior credits should be applied.

Disposition. remanded

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the credits allowed for the good behavior of a convict, shall be deducted from “the entire term of penal servitude to which he has been sentenced.””

“Whatever deduction is to be made for good behavior, is not to be taken from the beginning or the middle, but from the end of the entire term.”

Synopsis

Deduction from Prisoner’s Teem oe Service.—When a prisoner has been convicted of felony for two offenses, for which he has been sentenced to suffer imprisonment in the State Prison, the term of imprisonment on the second sentence to commence at the expiration of the first, any deduction for good behavior to which the prisoner may be entitled during the first term of imprisonment, under the Act of 1868, must not be taken from the end of such first term, but from the end of the entire term included in both sentences.

Idem.—The entire period of penal servitude included in both sentences, is but one term within the meaning of said statute, and the number of days deduction to which the prisoner may be entitled for good behavior is to be taken from the end of the entire term.

Mr. Chief Justice Wallace, speaking for the Court, said: The language of the statute is that the credits allowed for the good behavior of a convict, shall be deducted from “the entire term of penal servitude to which he has been sentenced.” The prisoner in this case has been convicted of two offenses, for each of which he has been sentenced to suffer imprisonment in the State Prison for ten years, making twenty years in all as the “entire term” to which he has been sentenced. The Court is of opinion that in such a case “the entire term of penal servitude,” within the intent of the statute, is twenty years. Each period of ten years is but a part of the entire term, and the second follows the first without any hiatus. Whatever deduction is to be made for good behavior, is not to be taken from the beginning or the middle, but from the end of the entire term. We think the prisoner must be remanded, and it is so ordered.

Ex Parte Dalton

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