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12 F.2d 239

Docket No. 4484.

United States v. Remus

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided April 8, 1926.)

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1926-04-08

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““ ‘The judgment of the court is that the defendant, on the first count of the Indictment be confined in the United States penitentiary at McNeil Island, state of Washington, for the term and period of two (2) years, and, on the second count a like term and period is also imposed; said terms and periods of imprisonment not to run concurrently.’ The commitment charged imprisonment ‘for the term and period of two years on each of the first and third counts of the indictment, said terms and periods to run consecutively’. After having served the full term of the sentence imposed upon him under the first count, Shirley filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that the sentence upon the second count was null and void. The warden filed a motion to dismiss the petition. The district court overruled the motion and ordered that Shirley be discharged. On appeal, the Circuit Court of Appeals for this Circuit held, of course, that the prisoner was detained, not by virtue of the warrant of commitment, but on account of the judgment and sentence; and that the commitment cannot vary nor contradict the judgment upon which it is based. It held, however, that since Shirley had pleaded guilty to the third count of the indictment, the trial court should have delayed the order of discharge a sufficient time to permit the proper authority, towit, the court in which he was tried and convicted, to enter sentence upon said third count. The order discharging Shirley from custody was modi”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Buie v. King

Relies on United States v. Daugherty · Jaybird Mining Co. v. Weir · United States v. Patterson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1926-04-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently April 1987

10 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

501926193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶11. Criminal law <@=1216(2).

¶2Federal courts have full power to impose cumulative sentences, or to require two or more sentences to be served separately.

¶32. Criminal law <@=>1216(2)— Concurrent service of sentences cannot be inferred from absence of specific directions to contrary, If there are separate judgment entries and it is beyond power of court to require concurrent service.

¶4Concurrent service of sentences is not to be inferred from absence of specific directions to the contrary, if there are separate judgment entries and it is beyond power of court to require concurrent service.

¶53. Criminal law <@=I216(2) — Sentence to federal penitentiary for conspiracy to violate National Prohibition Act and sentence to jail for violation of such act, imposed by separate judgments, held required to be served consecutively (National Prohibition Act, and title 2 thereof [Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10138(4 et seq.]).

¶6Where defendant was convicted for conspiracy to violate National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10138% et seq.), and sentenced to federal penitentiary for two years, and a few days later was convicted of violating title 2 of such act, a misdemeanor, and sentenced by same judge to imprisonment in county jail for one year, fteld, that sentences ran consecutively, notwithstanding absence of specific direction to that effect.

¶7Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western Division of the Southern District of Ohio; Smith Hickenlooper, Judge.

¶8Petition for habeas corpus by George Remus against the United States. Prom a judgment granting the writ, United States appeals.

¶9Reversed.

¶10Certiorari denied 46 S. Ct. 640, 70 L. Ed.-.

¶11Simon Ross, of Cincinnati, Ohio (Haveth E. Mau, U. S. Atty., and A. Lee Beaty, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the brief), for the United States.

¶12Leonard Garver, Jr., of Cincinnati, Ohio (Lorbach & Garver, of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the brief), for appellee.

¶13Before DENISON, DONAHUE, and MOORMAN, Circuit Judges.

¶14MOORMAN, Circuit Judge.

¶15Appellee was convicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio of conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10138% et seq.), and was sentenced May 16, 1922, to confinement in the penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga., for a period of two years. ■ Thereafter, on May 20, 1922, he was charged with violating title 2 of the National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10138% et seq.), and after trial and conviction was sentenced on May 24th to imprisonment in the jail of Montgomery county, Ohio, for one year. Writs of error were prosecuted from both convictions and the judgments affirmed. United States v. Remus (C. C. A.) 291 P. 501 and 513. In January of 1924 he was committed to the penitentiary, hut was released therefrom September 2, 1920, after serving the longer sentence. On March 11, 1925, a mittimus was issued on the sentence imposed under the conviction of May 24th, pursuant to which he was taken in custody by the marshal shortly after September 2d. On September 8th he filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he had served in full the longer of the two sentences, and in so doing had served concurrently therewith the shorter sentence for the misdemeanor. Upon hearing the writ was granted, to reverse which this appeal is prosecuted.

¶16[1,2] The federal courts haye full power to impose cumulative sentences, or to require two or more sentences to be served separately. Howard v. United States (6 C. C. A.) 75 F. 986, 21 C. C. A. 586, 34 L. R. A. 509. It has been held, however, that if in a single judgment entry a defendant is given more than one sentence in.the same penitentiary for different offenses, set out in separate indictments tried together, and there is no direction as to the order of service, the sentences are to be regarded as running concurrently. United States v. Patterson (C. C.) 29 F. 775. The obvious reason for this is that in such case it does not appear whether the sentences are to be served concurrently or consecutively, and, if consecutively, which one the prisoner is serving after his incarceration, thus giving cause for doubt, which must be resolved in favor of the defendant. But it does not follow that) to eliminate all doubt or misapprehension or to effect separate service, it'is necessary in every ease that the judgment state that the sentences shall be cumulative and direct the order of service, for concurrent service is not to be inferred from the absence of specific directions to the contrary, if there are.separate judgment entries and it is beyond the power of the court to require concurrent service. In that kind of ease there can be no misapprehension; the intent is as clear as if ex*240pressed in terms. It is the intent appearing in the judgment.entry that controls. This, we think, is the meaning of United States v. Daugherty, 46 S. Ct. 156, 70 L. Ed. — , where it was held that “the reasonable and natural implication from the whole entry” was that the sentences were cumulative, although it was pointed out that “sentences in criminal cases should reveal with fair certainty the intent of the court and exclude any serious misapprehensions by those who must execute them.”

¶17[3] In this case the same judge imposed the two sentences. The second made no reference to the first. It is not to be supposed, however, from that circumstance, that he intended it to be served concurrently with the first, but rather, knowing that it could not be served in the penitentiary, that he intended that each should be served at the place designated and did not consider it necessary to say that the jail sentence should be served separately from the penitentiary sentence. United States v. Patterson is wholly inapplicable to the question here, since, in view of the difference in the two offenses, appellee could not have believed, while in the penitentiary, that he was also serving the sentence on the misdemeanor. In Zerbst v. Lyman, 255 F. 609, 166 C. C. A. 643, 5 A. L. R. 377, the penitentiary was designated as the place of incarceration on both sentences, and, there being no direction as to the order of service, it was held that the general rule hereinbefore referred to applied. In this ease the difference in the sentences necessitated separate service — one was for a- felony; the other, a misdemeanor. Neither was 'ordered to be served at the place designated in the judgment for the service of the other; the appellee could not have been sentenced to the penitentiary for the misdemeanor. From this hypothesis alone there is a clear intent of separate service.

¶18Judgment reversed.

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