Ex parte Bridgforth
| Decision Date | 09 February 1900 |
| Citation | 77 Miss. 418,27 So. 622 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | EX PARTE DREW BRIDGFORTH |
December 1899
FROM the judgment of HON. Z. M. STEPHENS, circuit judge, third district, denying appellant's application for release from custody on habeas corpus.
Bridgforth the appellant, was the defendant in a bastardy proceeding and upon an issue made up in the circuit court of DeSoto county he was adjudged to be the real father of the bastard and damages in the sum of $ 24 per year for ten years, to be paid annually, were assessed against him accordingly. The judgment provided, under code 1892, § 261, that the defendant, now appellant, should give bond for the payment of the installments of the damages as they fell due, and in default of his so doing it was ordered that he stand committed to jail. Appellant failed to give the bond, and when the jail door was opened for his entrance, applied for a writ of habeas corpus. Failing to obtain his release from the circuit judge to whom he made his application and by whom his case was heard, he appealed to the supreme court.
Affirmed.
R. L. Dabney, and Wall & Morgan, for appellant.
The annotations to § 261, code of 1892, are misleading. In Musser v. Stewart, 21 Ohio St., 353, the conclusion was that the judgment obtained was not in the nature of a debt, or of compensation for a civil injury, but was a punishment for a wrongful act, inflicted to protect the public. In Ex parte Wheeler, 34 Kan. 96, the same conclusion was reached. The Kansas constitution prohibits imprisonment for debt, except in case of fraud, and the decision planted the question on the exception.
A late Iowa ease, Holmes v. State, 2 G. Greene, 501, is in appellant's favor, and it is well reasoned. The Iowa constitution is exactly like ours. The decisions adverse to appellant's contention are a mass of incongruities. If we adopt the theory that the judgment is a penalty for the protection of the public we are at once confronted with the fact that the mother of the bastard controls the judgment absolutely and the further fact that it is discretionary with the judge to require or not require the bond, etc.
Wiley N. Nash, attorney-general, contra.
Section 30, constitution of 1890, was intended to apply to contract debts; it was never designed to relieve pecuniary liabilities and penalties arising from the commission of crime. Bridgforth is imprisoned not because he owes a debt, but because he violated the law in begetting a bastard child, and the sum awarded against him is a penalty. Speaking of the constitutional provision, it is said by this court: "It is quite evident that the word 'debt' in this connection is not used in its widest scope, as...
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