Brown v. Com.
| Citation | 243 S.W.2d 885 |
| Parties | BROWN v. COMMONWEALTH. |
| Decision Date | 09 November 1951 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court (Kentucky) |
Richard J. Getty, Ray M. Prall, Lexington, for appellant.
A. E. Funk, Atty. Gen., James Park, Commonwealth's Atty., Paul Mansfield, County Atty., Lexington, for appellee.
This is a habeas corpus proceeding. The petitioner, Julius Brown, a resident of New York City, was convicted in magistrate's court in Fayette County of a violation of the Narcotic Act. Pursuant to KRS 218.250 he was sentenced to twelve months in the Fayette County jail, and then probated to the United States Public Health Service Hospital or until discharged by the hospital's medical officers as no longer addicted to drugs.
Apparently petitioner had formerly entered the hospital about the first of March, 1951 as a voluntary patient, where he remained for approximately fifteen days, when, it is claimed, he requested to be released, believing himself to be cured of the drug habit. He then returned to his home in New York City. In July, 1951, he returned to the hospital and asked that he be permitted voluntarily to reenter. The officials of the hospital informed him that it would be necessary to contact the United States narcotic agents at Lexington. This was done. The narcotic agents then came to the hospital and immediately took petitioner before Magistrate Jackson in Lexington where petitioner stated he was a narcotic addict, resulting in the sentence and probation above. He was then returned to the hospital where he remained until July 27 when he decided to leave against the advice of its medical officers, thereby violating the probation. He was then taken before the magistrate, who revoked his probation and committed him to jail for the remainder of the twelve months sentence. He filed this petition and a hearing was had before Judge Joseph J. Bradley, who ruled that the petitioner was in lawful custody of the Fayette County jailer by reason of the judgment rendered in the magistrate's court. From that ruling this appeal is prosecuted.
A number of propositions are called to our attention, chief among which is that in misdemeanor cases, where maximum and minimum penalties are prescribed and the defendant waives the right to a trial by jury and pleads guilty, the judge is obliged to inflict the minimum penalty. A long line of cases support this contention. The Statute KRS 431.130, and Criminal Code of Practice, Sec. 257, prescribe that a jury shall fix the degree of punishment. Were this an appeal because of error of the court in sentencing to more than the minimum penalty, the cause would have to be reversed.
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