Mayes

Henry Mayes, an inmate of the United States Penitentiary at. Alcatraz, California, petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus, contending that he has served all sentences for which he was committed to custody (less time allowed for good conduct).

On March 15, 1946, petitioner was sentenced by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana to a five year term of imprisonment in Criminal Case No. 8515; on the same day petitioner was sentenced by the same court to an additional five year term of imprisonment in Criminal Case No. 8516, the sentence under case No. 8516 to begin at the expiration of the sentence in case No. 8515.

On October 21, 1946, petitioner was sentenced by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas to a five year term of imprisonment in Criminal Case No. 14404, “* * * said sentence to begin at expiration of sen *2 tence he is now serving.” The issue here is whether the sentence imposed in case No.. 14404 began at the expiration of the five year term imposed in case No. 8515, and ran concurrently with the term imposed in case No. 8516 (as petitioner contends), or whether that sentence imposed in case No.…

On Rehearing

Respondent moves for a rehearing, on the ground that subsequent to this Court’s order discharging the petitioner from custody, the case of Affronti v. United States, 350 U.S. 79 , 76 S.Ct. 171 , was decided, in which the Supreme Court disapproved Kirk v. United States, 9 Cir., 185 F.2d 185 , 187 — a ease cited by this Court in support of its order discharging the petitioner.

Neither the Affronti case nor the Kirk case directly involves the point to be decided here. Those cases are concerned with the power of a district judge to suspend sentences which are unexecuted in that they constitute the unserved terms of a series of consecutive sentences. The case at bar turns upon whether or not the language used by a sentencing court was ambiguous.

The Kirk decision was based in part upon the statement of the court that “A prisoner serving the first of several *4 consecutive sentences is not serving the other sentences.” That statement was used by this Court as a partial guide to its interpretation of the meaning of the word “sentence.” In the Affronti case the Supreme Court did not discuss the meaning of the word “sentence,” but based its decision on what it believed was…