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488 So. 2d 33

Boutwell v. State

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama

Decided April 8, 1986

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama · decided 1986-04-08

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“"Quick appeals from the circuit court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, in which he challenges the calculation of credit for time he spent in jail before trial. "Quick argues that he was not credited with the proper amount of time for the time he served in jail while awaiting trial. Specifically, Quick claims that he has been continuously incarcerated since he was arrested for burglary in 1995 and that the clerk is crediting him only with jail time accrued from the date of his acquittal on the charge of capital murder to the date he was sentenced on his burglary convictions. "The State moved to dismiss Quick's petition. In support of its response, the State offered the affidavit of Kathy Holt, correctional records director for the Department of Corrections, averring that Quick received 213 days of jail credit for each burglary conviction based on the certified report of the clerk of the circuit court in which Quick was convicted and sentenced, as required by § 15-18-5 , Ala. Code 1975. Attached to the affidavit were certified copies of the clerk's forms indicating the amount of credit Quick had accrued for time served. The trial judge subsequently dismissed the petition for the writ of habeas corpus. "Section 15-18-5 , Ala. Code 1975, requires that `actual time spent incarcerated pending trial shall be certified by the circuit clerk or district clerk on forms to be prescribed by the Board of Corrections.' Although the State's response indicates that the”

quoted by 6 later decisions, including Smith v. State, Gunn v. State

“'A petition for writ of habeas corpus is a proper procedure to test whether the State has properly calculated the amount of time the inmate must serve in prison.'”

quoted by 5 later decisions, including Mintz v. State, Ex Parte Deramus

Relies on Boutwell v. State · Mead v. State · 462 So. 2d 1063 - Giles v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1986-04-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently September 2011 · most notably 814 So. 2d 1008 - Dupaquier v. State (2001), 646 So. 2d 158 - Swicegood v. State (1993)

27 state decisions

1301986199020002010decided

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 →

¶1

¶2Appellant, Grady Boutwell, was convicted on April 12, 1965, of murder in the second degree and was sentenced to thirty years in the state penitentiary. His conviction was affirmed without opinion by this court and affirmed with opinion by the Alabama Supreme Court. Boutwell v. State, 279 Ala. 176,183 So.2d 774 (1966).

¶3On November 1, 1985, appellant filed a pro se pleading styled "Motion for Jail Time," in the Circuit Court of Escambia County, Alabama. Appellant alleged that he spent thirteen months in jail awaiting trial and that this time was not credited to his sentence as required by § 15-18-7, Code of Alabama 1975. The trial court summarily denied appellant's "motion." Appellant then filed a "Motion for a Written Statement as to Findings of Facts," seeking the court's reasons for denying his motion for jail time credit; this motion was also denied.

¶4"A petition for writ of habeas corpus is a proper procedure to test whether the State has properly calculated the amount of time the inmate must serve in prison." Mead v. State,475 So.2d 645 (Ala.Cr.App. 1985). Appellant's motion was properly sworn to and we will view it as a petition for writ of habeas corpus, although not properly designated as such.

¶5The State offered no facts which contradict those set out in the petition. Therefore, the unrefuted facts set out in the petition must be taken as true. Giles v. State, 462 So.2d 1063,1064 (Ala.Cr.App. 1985), and cases cited therein. Section15-18-5, Code of Alabama 1975, states:

¶6 "Upon conviction and imprisonment for any felony or misdemeanor, the sentencing court shall order that the convicted person be credited with all of his actual time spent incarcerated pending trial for such offense. The actual time spent incarcerated pending trial shall be certified by the circuit clerk or district clerk on forms to be prescribed by the board of corrections."

¶7Section 15-18-7 states that § 15-18-5 "shall be applicable to any prisoner presently incarcerated who comes within the purview of sections 15-18-5 and 15-18-6." (No issue pertaining to § 15-18-6 has been raised.)

¶8Appellant's unchallenged petition is meritorious on its face in view of §§ 15-18-5 and 15-18-7; therefore, he is entitled to habeas corpus relief if the asserted matters are true. The trial court should not have dismissed the petition without a hearing on the merits to ascertain facts sufficient to apply the applicable law.

¶9We conclude that the trial court erred in summarily denying appellant's petition. Therefore, the trial court's judgment is hereby reserved, and this cause is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

¶10REVERSED AND REMANDED.

¶11All Judges concur.

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