Community Release Board v. Superior Court

It is hardly “man-bites-dog” news to the trial judges of this state to observe that the new determinate sentence law is hardly a model of legislative clarity. In this case we are called upon to ascertain the legislative intent in two of its more murky provisions. The issue is whether a prisoner is entitled to good time credit under section 2931 (all citations are to the Penal Code) against time confined under section 3057 for parole revocation.

Since prisoners are not necessarily paradigms of responsible behavior and since, in climbing up civilization’s ladder, we have abandoned the lash and torture chamber, some method must be devised to control the obstreperous inmate. Under the Indeterminate Sentence Law, this was done by administrative term fixing and parole practices. Since these dangling carrots are absent under the new law, the Legislature substituted “good behavior and participation credit.” Under the present law, the judge sentences the prisoner to a definite term under section 1170. Then to give the prisoner an incentive to behave himself, section 2931 provides that the prison authorities may reduce his time by one-third for good behavior and participation. As…