In re Edward Murphy

• Decision Date: 05 January 1901
• Docket Number: 11,923
• Citation: 63 P. 428,62 Kan. 422
• Parties: In re EDWARD MURPHY
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

63 P. 428

62 Kan. 422

In re EDWARD MURPHY

No. 11,923

Supreme Court of Kansas

January 5, 1901

Decided January, 1901.

Original proceeding in habeas corpus.

Writ denied and prisoner remanded.

O. C Phillips, for petitioner.

A. A Godard, attorney-general, and J. S. West, for respondent.

OPINION

SMITH J.:

This application is based on the following agreed facts: The petitioner was duly convicted of grand larceny in the district court of Leavenworth county, Kansas; on the 2d day of February, 1899, he was sentenced by said court to the state industrial reformatory, at Hutchinson, in accordance with section 11 of chapter 134, General Statutes of 1897 (Gen. Stat. 1899, § 6781). Thereafter, on the 14th day of September, 1900, the board of managers of said reformatory, in accordance with section 14 of chapter 134, General Statutes of 1897, made the following order:

"At a meeting of the board of managers of the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory held at said reformatory on the 14th day of September, 1900, the following resolution was adopted:

"WHEREAS, One Edward Murphy, of Leavenworth, Kan., was sentenced to this institution on the 2d day of February, 1899, by the district court of said county, for the crime of grand larceny; and

"WHEREAS, The said Edward Murphy is apparently incorrigible, and the board of managers, believing the presence of the said Murphy in this reformatory to be seriously detrimental to the welfare of the institution, have this day, and in accordance with section 14 of chapter 134 of the General Statutes of 1897, ordered the superintendent, J. S. Simmons, to take the said Edward Murphy to the penitentiary, at Lansing, Kan., and turn him over to the warden, there to be dealt with according to law.

"IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I, J. W. Lingenfelter, secretary of said board, have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of said reformatory, at Hutchinson, Kan., this 14th day of September, 1900.

[SEAL.] J. W. LINGENFELTER, Secretary."

Thereafter the said J. S. Simmons, superintendent of the reformatory, by virtue of the aforesaid order, took the petitioner to the Kansas State Penitentiary, at Lansing, and turned him over to J. B. Tomlinson, the warden. He is now there confined under the charge of said J. B. Tomlinson.

The prisoner must be denied a discharge from his imprisonment. When he committed the felony for which he was convicted, and when he was tried and sentenced therefor, the laws in force regulating his punishment, and the terms and conditions of the same, entered into and became a part of the record of the sentence. (The State v. Page, 60 Kan. 664, 57 P. 514.) The court, in the first instance, might legally have sentenced the prisoner to the punishment he is now enduring, and would probably have done so had his incorrigibility appeared as it did to the board of managers of the reformatory. Under the decision in The State v. Clark, 60 Kan. 450, 56 P. 767, a person convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to the reformatory is deemed infamous to the same degree as if he had been sentenced to the penitentiary. In The State v. Page, supra, the court said:

"It is undeniably true that the sole power to provide for the punishment of offenders belongs to the legislature. It alone has the power to define offenses and affix punishments. Its authority in these respects is exclusive and supreme. Courts are empowered only to ascertain whether an offense has been committed, and, if so, to assess punishment, within the terms of the law, for its commission. It cannot be doubted that the legislature, in virtue of its exclusive and sovereign authority over such matters, may affix conditions to the punishment it ordains, and among other things may set to it limits of duration, terminable upon conditions. To these conditions the courts in assessing punishment must conform. Into every sentence of conviction the terms and...