Commonwealth ex rel. Greevy v. Reifsteck

Citations

• 271 Pa. 441
• 115 A. 130
• 1921 Pa. LEXIS 524

Syllabus

<p>Criminal law — Manslaughter—Courts — Jurisdiction — Oyer and terminer — Quarter sessions — Indictment and trial in quarter sessions — Failure to certify case over — Appeals—Háleos corpus — Act of March SI, 1860.</p> <p>1. Habeas corpus cannot properly be made a substitute for an appeal.</p> <p>2. There is nothing in article I, section 14, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, which will prevent the legislature, when specifying in a statute “relating to penal proceedings and pleadings” (such as the Act of March 31, 1860, P. L. 428), that certain crimes referred to shall be tried in one, and others in the other, of two named criminal courts, from also providing that a defendant, properly indicted for one of those crimes, if he wishes to object because ha was tried in the wrong one of said courts, must make his objection prior to affirmance of its judgment by the court of last resort, or be deemed to have waived it.</p> <p>3. Under section 61 of the Act of 1860, supra, it is too late for a defendant, after affirmance of the sentence on appeal, to object that he was tried, convicted and sentenced in the wrong one of said courts.</p> <p>4. Such an objection is at most an irregularity, which will not be considered on habeas corpus, after the sentence has been affirmed.</p> <p>5. In such case even if the Supreme Court sustained the relator’s objection, it should not discharge him. All it should do would be to vacate the sentence, and give leave to the court below to certify the record into the oyer and terminer nunc pro tunc, and thereafter sentence the relator in the latter court.</p> <p>6. On appeal from the Superior Court, the Supreme Court has general jurisdiction over all convictions of crime, and hence its affirmance of the judgment and sentence of the quarter sessions, cannot be made the subject of collateral attack by habeas corpus.</p> <p>7. Not decided whether habeas corpus is available to one convicted of crime, unless the record shows that he had committed no