Ex Parte Prince

• Decision Date: 20 May 1891
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: Ex parte PRINCE.

9 So. 659

27 Fla. 196

Ex parte PRINCE.

Florida Supreme Court

May 20, 1891

Habeas corpus.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. Habeas corpus does not lie to correct mere irregularity of procedure, where there is jurisdiction. There must be illegality or want of jurisdiction.

2. Habeas corpus is not a remedy for relief against indictments charging criminal offenses defectively or inartificially though it seems to be a remedy where an indictment charges as an offense an act which, at the time of its commission, the law did not make criminal. In the former case the detention of the accused is not without jurisdiction, though in the latter it is held to be so on the ground that there is no law punishing the act.

3. Where a statute punishes the larceny of 'any money * * * or any bank-note,' and an indictment charges the larceny of 'divers bills, commonly known and denominated as 'national currency of the United States of America,' of divers denomination,' giving their denomination and value, the sufficiency of the indictment cannot be inquired into by habeas corpus.

4. Greenbacks are 'money,' and national bank-bills are 'bank-notes,' within the meaning of the statute punishing the larceny of any 'money * * * or any bank-note.'

COUNSEL John S. Beard and Fred T. Myers, for petitioner.

William B. Lamar, Atty. Gen., for the State.

OPINION

RANEY C.J.

The return to the writ of habeas corpus shows that the petitioner is held by the sheriff of Leon county to answer an indictment found by the grand jury at the late spring term of the circuit court of that county, charging that the petitioner on the 27th day of March of the present year, in that county 'did feloniously steal, take, and carry away divers bills, commonly known and denominated 'national currency of the United States of America,' of divers denominations, to-wit. One bill of the denomination of twenty dollars, of the value of twenty dollars; two bills each of the denomination of ten dollars, each of the value of ten dollars; one bill of the denomination of five dollars, of the value of five dollars,--a more particular description of which said bills is to the jurors unknown, and which said bills circulated and passed in the said state of Florida as money, and which were then and there the property of one John G. Collins.'

The statute under which this indictment is claimed to be found is section 17, p. 360, McClel. Dig., which provides that 'whoever commits the crime of larceny by stealing the property of another, any money, goods, or chattels, or any bank-note, bond, promissory note, bill of exchange, or other bill, order, or certificate, or any book of account for or concerning money or goods due, or to become due, or to be delivered, or any deed of writing containing a conveyance of land, or any other valuable contract in force or any writ, process, or public record,' shall be punished, if the value of the property stolen exceeds the value of $100, by imprisonment in the state penitentiary, or by fine and imprisonment in the county jail, or, if it does not exceed such value, by imprisonment in the state penitentiary or county jail, or by fine; the section specifying the maximum punishment of either kind.

The ground upon which the petitioner claims a discharge is that the indictment does not allege 'any sufficient offense' under the laws of this state, and it is argued that it 'charges no offense.'

A primary question involved in this case is that of the function of the writ of habeas corpus where the petitioner is held to answer an indictment, which is the status of this prisoner.

In Corryell's Case, 22 Cal. 179, the petitioner was under indictment for altering 'a certain record of, and belonging to, the office of the secretary of state of said state, the same being an engrossed copy of a bill which was introduced into the senate of the state,' at its session in 1861, describing the same, and alleging it to be 'by law a record of, and belonging to, the office of said secretary of state,' and specifying the alteration. The statute of California upon which it was attempted to found the indictment punished the alteration of any minute, document, book, or other proceeding whatever, of or belonging to any public office in the state. There was however, at the time of the alleged alteration, as decided by the court, no law requiring engrossed bills to be transferred to the office of the secretary of state, or kept there; and it was consequently held that the petitioner was not charged with any offense known to the criminal laws of the state, and therefore that the court had no jurisdiction, as its jurisdiction or power extended only to such matters as the law declared to be criminal, and that the petitioner must for this reason be discharged, the function of the writ being to grant relief where the detention is without jurisdiction, or in other words, illegal. In Ex parte Kearny, 55 Cal. 212, the same doctrine is, in effect, approved, though there had been a conviction in that case by an inferior court of limited jurisdiction, and the further feature of the legal necessity that its records should affirmatively show jurisdiction entered into the decision. A municipal ordinance provided that 'no person should address to another, or utter in the presence of another, any words having a tendency to create a breach of the peace;' and it was held that the ordinance meant that the words must be uttered in the presence of the person whom they intend to provoke to such breach; and, the complaint failing to aver that the words alleged to have been uttered were addressed to or uttered in the presence of the person of whom they were spoken, the prisoner should be discharged, as it affirmatively appeared from the record that he had been convicted of an act which, under the then existing law, was not a criminal offense. In Re Buell, 3 Dill. 116, the petitioner was arrested in Missouri, and proceedings were taken under the act of congress for remanding him to the District of Columbia for trial under an indictment found there charging him with libel, and he obtained a writ ofhabeas corpus, and was ordered to be discharged on the ground that the indictment failed to allege a publication of the libel in that district, but made only such an allegation as could be held to have intended a publication in Michigan, and consequently not an offense against the laws of the United States governing the District of Columbia. It is said in the opinion by Judge...