Schick v. Reed

In I960, the President, acting under the authority of Art. II, § 2, cl. 1, of the Constitution, commuted petitioner Maurice L. Schick’s sentence from death to life imprisonment, subject to the condition that he would not thereafter be eligible for parole. The petitioner challenges the validity of the condition, and we granted certiorari to determine the enforceability of that commutation as so conditioned.

The pertinent facts are undisputed. In 1964 petitioner, then a master sergeant in the United States Army stationed in Japan, was tried before a court-martial for the brutal murder of an…