“The absurdity of making a good time allowance to those who are serving
the so-called indeterminate sentence is more apparent when the case of
a prisoner convicted of manslaughter is considered. This prisoner was
sentenced to serve from two to twenty-five years. In the natural course
of events he would be eligible to parole after two years. Given the
benefit of the annual good time allowance he would have to serve only
about eighteen months before being eligible for parole.
“The Attorney General has given an opinion to the effect that the
prisoners convicted under the indeterminate sentence law are entitled
to the good time allowance. Evidently there has been a good deal of
legislative bungling in connection with these prison laws. With a few
more amendments it is much to be feared the State will be unable to
keep anybody at all in the penitentiary longer than the time required
for hearing a mandamus suit.”
* * * * *
_How Newspapers Err._--The Providence (R.I.) News says that:
“There was a queer mix-up over a sentence passed by the district court
of Minnesota on a youth of twenty years. Two New York state papers
had the story that the youth was sentenced to forty years in prison
for robbing a man of $1.85. One paper used the sentence as a text for
a general cry down of Wisconsin’s very progressive, although what a
sentence passed in St. Paul had to do with the laws of Wisconsin,
progressive or otherwise, was not clear. The other paper commented on
the affair under the caption: ‘The Crime of a Court.’
“It appears by a letter from Judge Orr, who sentenced the youth, that
he was not sentenced to forty years in prison, but was sentenced under
the indeterminate law, and can, after two years, apply for a parole. It
is true that in robbery cases the maximum sentence is forty years, but
it is up to the board of parole and to the youth himself, very largely
to the youth, as to how long he will stay in prison. As the young man
had been a waif and pleaded guilty, the story, if true, was one that
could not fail to cause indignation. There was very little truth about
it, fortunately, and Judge Orr, speaking for his state says:
‘Minnesota is in the front rank in the matter of legislation
recognizing the principles of modern penology and criminology,
including the indeterminate sentence all cases, limited suspension of
sentence, etc., and the administration of justice in the courts of this
state is in full sympathy and accord with the statutes. Such blunders
as these are apt to do courts everywhere an injury, so the truth
should be known.’”
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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