When the prisoner comes up for examination, and has handed in his report
of good conduct while incarcerated, the president of the board fixes a
distrustful eye upon him, and says in effect, "Your behavior here seems
to have been unobjectionable; but the board cannot take the
responsibility of granting parole on that ground alone. It desires to be
informed what you were doing in such and such a place, in such and such
a year? Is it not true that you were arrested in this or that year for
this or that offense? Has your career, in short, been absolutely
blameless during the whole course of your life? Because, unless you can
prove such to be the case, it will indicate a predisposition to
law-breaking on your part which will render it imprudent for the board
to recommend you for parole to the Department."
The president has a sheaf of papers in his hand, which he glances over
significantly while the mind of the prisoner goes groping back over the
past, asking himself what he has done amiss in forgotten years, and who
can be his accusers. He has no counsel beside him to tell him that he is
being tried before an unauthorized tribunal, on unsupported testimony,
on charges irrelevant to that for which he is now undergoing punishment;
or to remind him that the judge who passed sentence on him had specified
that if his behavior were good while serving that sentence, he would be
eligible for parole--that he had, perhaps, given him a longer sentence
than he would otherwise have done, upon this very understanding; and
that, consequently, the parole board was now arrogating the power to
override the purpose of the federal court, and to inflict additional and
unwarranted punishment upon him for something which he may or may not
have done in the past, or for which, if he had done it and been
convicted, he may already have served sentence.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264