Blair v. Peyton
| Citation | 210 Va. 416,171 S.E.2d 690 |
| Parties | Walter W. BLAIR v. C. C. PEYTON, Supt., etc. |
| Decision Date | 19 January 1970 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Virginia |
Leonard B. Sachs, Norfolk, for plaintiff in error.
Gerald L. Baliles, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Robert Y. Button, Atty. Gen., Reno S. Harp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., on brief), for defendant in error.
Before SNEAD, C.J., and I'ANSON, CARRICO, GORDON, HARRISON, COCHRAN, and HARMAN, JJ.
This is an appeal from a final order dismissing a petition for writ of habeas corpus filed by Walter W. Blair, the petitioner, against C. C. Peyton, Superintendent of the Virginia State Penitentiary. James D. Cox, the present superintendent of the penitentiary, has been substituted in place of C. C. Peyton as respondent.
In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the petitioner attacked the validity of two convictions of armed robbery entered against him on February 20, 1950, by the Corporation Court of the City of Norfolk. At the time he filed his petition, the petitioner had fully served the sentences imposed as a result of the convictions. The petitioner was, at the time he filed his petition, serving sentences imposed upon him on December 22, 1950, by the Circuit Court of Culpeper County, which he began serving following termination of the Norfolk sentences.
The petitioner completed serving the Culpeper sentences and was released from custody prior to the time his case was argued before this court. He says, however, that we should retain jurisdiction and void the Norfolk convictions so that he will not suffer the civil disabilities resulting therefrom.
Our habeas corpus statutes are designed to provide relief in the form of the 'discharge' (Code § 8--603) from the 'person in whose custody' (Code § 8--598) a petitioner is 'detained without lawful authority' (Code § 8--596). Thus, our statutes are unlike the Federal statute applied in Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968), upon which the petitioner relies, and the case is not controlling here.
The petitioner is no longer detained and there is no custody from which to discharge him. To pass upon the merits of his claims would be to render an advisory opinion--a function our habeas corpus statutes neither provide for nor permit. This court, therefore, is without jurisdiction further to entertain the case, and the appeal will be dismissed.
Appeal dismissed.
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E.C. v. Virginia Dep't of Juvenile Justice, Record No. 110523.
...proceeding is not subject to this “axiomatic” principle relying primarily on language in the per curiam opinion issued in Blair v. Peyton, 210 Va. 416, 171 S.E.2d 690 (1970). Closer review of the record and history of Blair demonstrates that it is not dispositive of the issue in this case a......
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...This court, therefore, is without jurisdiction further to entertain the case, and the appeal will be dismissed. Blair v. Peyton, 210 Va. 416, 171 S.E.2d 690, 691 (1970). There is no indication that the petitioner has deliberately bypassed state procedures by his failure to file a state habe......
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...or an abstention contention was being made. Rakes' release makes his individual state habeas corpus case moot. Blair v. Peyton, 210 Va. 416, 171 S.E.2d 690 (1970), and no grounds for abstention pending statutory construction are apparent, see Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 88 S.Ct. 391, 1......
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...is jurisdictional in habeas corpus, and therefore a prerequisite to any consideration of a habeas petition. See Blair v. Peyton, 210 Va. 416, 417, 171 S.E.2d 690, 691 (1970). The detention requirement was historically interpreted strictly to mean actual physical detention, but in modern tim......