In re DeMeerleer

• Decision Date: 17 December 1948
• Docket Number: Motion No. 258.
• Citation: In re DeMeerleer, 323 Mich. 287, 35 N.W.2d 255 (Mich. 1948)
• Parties: In re DEMEERLEER.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

323 Mich. 287

35 N.W.2d 255

In re DEMEERLEER.

Motion No. 258.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 17, 1948.

Original habeas corpus proceeding and ancillary certiorari proceeding by Rene De Meerleer to obtain release from imprisonment in the State Penitentiary.

Writ of habeas corpus dismissed.

Before the Entire Bench.

Joseph W. Louisell, of Detroit, for petitioner.

Edmund E. Shepherd, Sol. Gen., of Lansing, and Daniel J. O'Hara and Harry W. Jackson, Asst. Attys, Gen., for the People.

BUSHNELL, Chief Justice.

In response to our writ of habeas corpus and ancillary writ of certiorari, returns have been filed by the trial judge and the warden of the State prison of southern Michigan. These show that defendant Rene DeMeerleer was convicted by a jury of the crime of manslaughter under an information charging him with the crime of murder, and is now confined in the State prison under a sentence of not less than 6 months and not more than 15 years from and after January 6, 1948.

In 1932 DeMeerleer pleaded guilty to a charge of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1944 his motion for ‘leave to file a delayed motion to withdraw his plea of guilty and for an order to vacate the judgment and sentence permitting of a new trial’ was denied. In 1945 a similar motion was denied, from which order we granted leave to appeal, and then affirmed, 313 Mich. 548, 21 N.W.2d 849. Upon our denial of an application for hearing, certiorari was sought and granted by the Supreme Court of the United States, where our affirmation of the trial judge's order was reversed. People v. DeMeerleer, 313 Mich. 548, 21 N.W.2d 849;De Meerleer v. State of Michigan, 329 U.S. 663, 67 S.Ct. 596, 91 L.Ed. 584. Thereafter the circuit court of Lenawee county granted DeMeerleer a new trial, set aside his plea of guilty, and entered an order of change of venue from Lenawee to Bay county, where, after a new trial, he was convicted of manslaughter.

We are now asked to discharge DeMeerleer from custody because he has already served more than the maximum sentence that may be imposed by law upon conviction of the offense of manslaughter.

It is also argued that he is entitled as of right to a credit against his present sentence for all the time served by him under his former illegal sentence since May, 1932, and that to cause him to thus be confined in excess of the maximum period set by law, is a violation of his constitutional rights.

We do not discuss any of these questions in...