People v. McNulty

Citations

• 3 Cal. Unrep. 441
• 28 P. 816
• 1891 Cal. LEXIS 1287

Syllabus

<p>Ex Post Facto Law—Prisoners Awaiting Execution.—Penal Code, section 1217, provides that the warrant for the execution of a prisoner sentenced to death must appoint a day for the execution, “which must not be less than thirty or more than sixty days from the time of judgment.” Section 1227 imposes on the sherifE the duty of executing criminals. Section 1229 directs that the execution must take place in the county where judgment is rendered. Laws of 1891, page 272, amended these sections by providing that the day of execution “must not be less than sixty or more than ninety days from the time of judgment,” and that the warrant must also direct the sherifE to deliver the prisoner to the warden of one of the state prisons, on which officer is imposed the duty of executing criminals, and directing that the execution take place in the prison to which the criminal is delivered. Held ex post facto as regards prisoners awaiting execution, because imposing greater punishments by the confinement in the state’s prison than the acts repealed.1</p> <p>Ex Post Facto Law—Unconstitutionality in Part.—Where it is evident that the legislature in passing such statute intended it to apply the new punishment alike in all cases of murder, past as well as future, and would not have passed it except as an entirety, and that its partial enforcement would produce effects which the legislature would never have sanctioned, the whole act must be declared unconstitutional.2</p>