Jamison v. Wimbish

Citations

• 130 F. 351
• 1904 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 255

Syllabus

<p>1. Criminal Daw — Sentence.</p> <p>This case involves the legality of a sentence by a police magistrate for a petty municipal offense to a term at hard labor on a local chain gang.</p> <p>2. Same — Infamous Crime.</p> <p>Whether or not a crime is infamous must depend upon the fact whether, by the statute defining it, an infamous punishment can be awarded. Mr. Justice Gray in Ex parte Wilson, 5 Sup. Ct 935, 114 U. S. 417-447, 29 L. Ed. 89.</p> <p>3. Same.</p> <p>An order of a police magistrate directing that a person shall serve a term in such a chain gang as that portrayed in the evidence is a sentence to infamous punishment.</p> <p>4. Same.</p> <p>A city charter which authorizes its police judge to impose fines for the violation of any law or ordinance passed in accordance with its charter to an amount not to exceed $500; to imprison offenders in the city barracks for a space not more than 60 days, or at labor on the public works in the county chain gang for not more than 6 months; where it appears also that the persons convicted of minor municipal offenses are made to wear the typical striped clothing of the penitentiary convict; where iron manacles, which can only be removed by the use of the cold chisel, are riveted upon their legs; where the irons on each leg are connected by chains; where they work and sleep in the same clothing; where they wake, toil, rest, eat, and sleep in manacles and chains; where their progress to and from their work is public, and where they work on the public roads and before the public eye; where at all times they are watched with convict guards armed with deadly weapons, who will kill them if they attempt to escape; where they are liable to public and severe whipping by a whipping boss with a heavy leathern strap about two and a half or three feet long, with solid hand-grasp, and with broad, heavy, and flexible lash; and where they are imprisoned, work, and eat with felons from the State Penitentiary, and are only separated from t