Request By:
Mr. Marvin Menix
Carter County Jailer
Courthouse
Grayson, Kentucky 41143
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your question is: Who has the authority to authorize the release of a prisoner from incarceration in your jail.
KRS 71.040 provides in part that the "county jailer shall receive and keep in the jail all persons who are lawfully committed thereof, until they are lawfully discharged. " (Emphasis added).
Once a prisoner is lawfully placed in your custody, you should not release him except upon a signed written order of the court having jurisdiction of the case. This is a construction which is fair to the jailer and which promotes the appropriate exercise of authority of the court of jurisdiction. Also in this manner there can be no misunderstandings or mixup in the discharge of a prisoner.
Where the defendant, however, is sentenced to a jail term and he serves out the term in full, the jailer can then release the prisoner if he [the jailer] is certain that he has complied with the commitment papers signed by the court when the prisoner was placed in his custody. See
Commonwealth v. Crawford, 285 Ky. 382, 147 S.W.2d 1019 (1941), holding that the head of a penal institution may not hold a prisoner in confinement after the expiration of the term provided in the commitment under which he is held.
Should any question arise in the mind of the jailer about the duration of the prisoner's incarceration, he should consult the court of jurisdiction and procure a discharge authority from the court in writing.
The county jailer should scrupulously avoid taking any orders of discharge except from the court of jurisdiction. There is no statutory authority for your releasing prisoners upon the signature of the county attorney. The law on this was set forth in
Brabandt v. Commonwealth, 157 Ky. 130, 162 S.W. 786 (1914) at page 787:
"The jailer is an officer of the commonwealth, with well-defined duties and responsibilities, and, within the scope of those duties, his authority is supreme. When he receives into his custody a prisoner under a final order of court, any order or direction of said court or any other court, or of any officer, other than the Governor, attempting to suspend the further execution of that judgment, being void and of no effect, should not be obeyed by him."