In re Jordan

• Decision Date: 20 January 1892
• Citation: 50 N.W. 1087,90 Mich. 3
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: In re JORDAN.

50 N.W. 1087

90 Mich. 3

In re JORDAN.

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 20, 1892

Habeas corpus proceedings by Sarah Jones Jordan against the superintendent of the industrial home for her discharge from the custody of such superintendent. Petitioner discharged.

W Stearns, for petitioner.

Milo D. Campbell, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

We think the commitment in this case fatally defective. As was said in Re Parks, 81 Mich. 243, 45 N.W. 824, we are not disposed to discharge any person from confinement, who has been presumptively fairly and legally convicted, because of technical errors or defects or omissions in the record of sentence or in the commitment; but in this case it clearly appears from the commitment that there was no trial, and that a girl of 14 years pleaded guilty to a charge which stated no offense whatever under our laws. The charge against her recites that on the 22d day of January, 1887, she was a disorderly person, within the meaning of section 1 of chapter 53 of the Compiled Laws of the State of Michigan, for that the said Sarah Jones "has no visible calling or business to maintain herself," and on said 22d day of January, 1887, did sleep in complainant's barn, in said township of Courtland, and during the eight days preceding said 22d day of January, 1887, did go about from place to place in said township without any visible means of support. Section 1 of the chapter referred to in the commitment, previous to 1883 in enumerating the different offenses constituting a disorderly person, made "all persons who have no visible calling or business to maintain themselves by" disorderly persons under the law. This was not used as a definition of "vagrancy," because vagrants were in the same statute also made disorderly persons. In 1883 this section was amended, and the clause above quoted, in reference to persons having no visible calling, etc., was stricken out; but vagrants were retained, and now are disorderly persons under the statute. Acts 1883, p. 141. We are constrained to hold that this omission was deliberate and that the legislature intended to take out from the definition of disorderly persons those who have no visible calling or business to maintain themselves. It is contended that, if this be so, still the language of the charge would in law constitute this girl, if the charge were true, a vagrant, and therefore the commitment may be held valid. The only additional...