Duehay

[1] On December 20, 1911, the defendant in error was convicted, on two counts, of the charge of having received articles stolen frpm the United States mails, and sentenced to the penitentiary at McNeil Island, Wash., for a term of four years, and to pay a fine of $1,000, upon each count, the terms of service to run consecutively. On petition for clemency, the President, on August 5, 1913, commuted the sentence to' make the service on the two four-year terms run concurrently, instead of consecutively, virtually and in reality reducing the term of service from eight years to four. One-third of defendant in error’s four-year term, as commuted, being due to expire in August, 1914, he made application to the board of parole, sitting in May, 1914, for hearing applications for parole for the months of June, July, and August of that year. The board, deeming he was not then eligible for parole, because he had not served a total of one-third of his original sentence of eight years, refused his application. Whereupon defendant in error applied to the court below for a writ of mandamus requiring the board to- entertain his petition, and, the writ having been granted by judgment and decree of…