State v. Collins

Citations

• 69 Wash. 268
• 124 P. 903
• 1912 Wash. LEXIS 889

Syllabus

<p>Elections—Offenses—Fraudulent Registration—False Oath— Loss of “Civil Rights.” The registration oath, required by Rem. & Bal. Code, § 4768, that the elector had not lost his civil rights by having been convicted of an infamous crime, is not shown to be false by an allegation in an information for false swearing that the accused had taken the oath after conviction of a felony, where, by such conviction, he had lost no civil rights, but only the right to vote, which is a political and not a civil right.</p> <p>Same—Statutes Construed. Const., art. 6, § 3, providing that persons convicted of infamous crimes shall be excluded from the elective franchise unless restored to their civil rights, cannot be taken as a construction of the existing territorial statute (Rem. & Bal. Code, § 4755), to mean that such persons lost their civil rights, When the act only forfeited their right to vote, a political and not a civil right.</p> <p>Same—Infamous Charge—Jail Breaking. An information for falsely swearing, in a registration oath made pursuant to Rem. & Bal. Code, § 4768, that the accused had not lost his civil rights, by being convicted of an infamous crime, is insufficient where it merely alleges that the accused had been convicted of the infamous crime of jail breaking in another state without showing that at the time of his escape he was held on an infamous charge; since by Rem. & Bal. Code, § 2342, jail breaking is a felony only where the prisoner was held on a felony charge, and a misdemeanor if held otherwise.</p> <p>Statutes—Conflict of Laws—Extraterritorial Force of Foreign Laws. Where, under the law of this state, jail breaking was only a misdemeanor at the time the offense was committed in another state, the offense would not be an infamous crime, within the meaning of Rem. & Bal. Code, § 4768, denying the elective franchise to certain citizens, even if jail breaking were a felony in such other state; since the laws of such state could not be given extraterritorial