Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1909 — The Indeterminate Sentence Law. [ARTICLE]

The Indeterminate Sentence Law.

The discharge of T. J. McCoy from the penitentiary has resolved itself entirely into an interpretation of the indeterminate law, the point at" issue being' Whether that law repeals a previous law that granted a diminution of the time for goed behavior. The Rensselaer paper that during the campaign exhibited such a marked fear that the election of James E. Watson wopld mean the release of McCoy before the three year expiration is now in great straits to explain the apparent desire of Governor Marshall to fall into the trap set by the McCoy attorneys to procure McCoy’s release. The opinion on which Marshall based his order for release was rendered by the attorney-general, who, to be sure, is a republican, but the governor was not bound to accept a -question of such magnitude as settled without considerable investigation and without consulting the board of pardons that has during the past ten years bumped into the good behavior question innumerable times. Had tjhe case of McCoy only depended on tbe opinion, and had there been no other time within the past ten years when it had been tried there might have been some wood reason for the governor Writing his instruction without consulting the pardon board, all of whom were unquestionably familiar with the ruling of the supreme court to the effect that the present law made void the good behavior cut off. The apparent zeal felt by the governor in this matte*, either for McCoy or for his attorneys, was evidenced by the fact that he directed in the last paragraph of his letter' to Warden Reid that this applied to the case of T. J. McCoy and never mentioned another case, although there are many othe 's of the same kind. The pardon board is for this purpose. Any person sentenced for an indeterminate period needs no inducement for good behavior. He has hope of his release as soon as the minimum period of his sentence is passed, and he would well know that any vicious conduct ou his part would destroy any possibility of favorable action by the parole hoard. No other inducement is nece saiy. A convict is not going to flirt with the indeterminate sentence law. The sentence of from one to three years means just what it says, and the parole board should have en ire jurisdiction over the length cf the sentence within the minimum and maximum periods. And it looks awkward for a newspaper to undertake to defend the action of either the attarcey-g nertl or the governor that would write an opinion and order a release without consulting those officials, the parole board and the warden of tbe penitentiary, whose business it would be in the interest of the state, to be familiar with the laws relating to those matters. Especially would it be awkward to defend this action, and to argue in favor of its wisdom, if the party doing so, had only a few months back, been so much concerned for fear the political opponent of this governor should do precisely what his champion later did.