Pellissier v. Reed

Citations

• 75 Wash. 201
• 134 P. 813
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 1698

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Law — Punishment — Sentence — Statutes — Repeal. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 8585, wherein no discretion is given to the court to sentence to the penitentiary male persons between the ages of sixteen and thirty, is superseded by the later act of 1909, Id., §§ 2277 and 2278, providing that the court may in its discretion sentence such criminals convicted of certain offenses, to the state reformatory.</p> <p>Constitutional Law — Rights of Accused Persons — Imprisonment — Transfers. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 2278, giving the board of control of penal institutions the power to remove persons from one institution to another whenever the welfare of the prisoner requires, does not deprive a prisoner sentenced to the reformatory and removed by the board to the penitentiary, of any constitutional right, where he had his day in court and, in the discretion of the court, could have been sentenced to the penitentiary in the first instance.</p> <p>Same — Judicial Power — Criminal Law — Sentence—Transfer of Persons. Such law does not confer judicial power on the board in control of penal institutions, since the commitment, read in the light of the statute, is in legal contemplation, a conditional sentence, until the board is satisfied that his welfare demands that he be transferred to some other institution.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Sentence—Age of Accused — Judgment—Conclusiveness. A sentence to the state reformatory is not invalid for the reason that the accused was not sixteen years of age, where the court found that he was over the age of sixteen, and so recited in the judgment, which was not appealed from, and so became conclusive.</p> <p>Habeas Corpus — Parole—Violation—Recapture. Violating parole subjects a prisoner to recapture; and irregularity in the warrant on which he was retaken is immaterial in habeas corpus proceedings for his release, where it appears from the answer that he was lawfully in custody.</p>