Ex Parte Wilson

Citations

• 114 U.S. 417
• 5 S. Ct. 935
• 29 L. Ed. 89
• 1885 U.S. LEXIS 1776

Syllabus

<p>This court cannot discharge on habeas corpus á person imprisoned under the sentence of a Circuit or District Court in a criminal case, unless the sentence exceeds the jurisdiction of that court, or there is no authority to hold the prisoner under the sentence.</p> <p>The provision of Rev. Stat. § 1032, authorizing certain offences to be prose- ' cuted either by indictment or by information, does not preclude the prosecution by information of such other offences as.may be so prosecuted consistently with the Constitution and laws of the United States.</p> <p>In the record of a general conviction and sentence upon two counts, one of which is good, a misrecital of the verdict as upon the other count only, in' stating the inquiry whether the convict had aught to say why sentence should not be pronounced against him, is no ground for discharging him on. habeas corpus.</p> <p>In the record of a judgment of a District Court, sentencing a person convicted in one State to imprisonment in a prison in another State, the omission to state that there was no suitable prison in the State in which he was convicted, and that the Attorney-General had designated the prison in the other State as a suitable place of imprisonment, is no gromict for discharg. ing the prisoner on habeas corpus.</p> <p>A certified copy of the record of a sentence to imprisonment is sufficient to-authorize the detention of the prisoner, without any warrant or mittimus.'</p> <p>A person sentenced to imprisonment for an infamous crime, without having, been presented or indicted by a grand jury, as required by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, is entitled 'to be discharged on habeas corpus.</p> <p>A crime punishable by imprisonment for a term of years at hard labor is an infamous crime, within the provision of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, that “ no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury.”</p>