People ex rel. Kuhn v. Protestant Episcopal House of Mercy of City of New York

• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: MAYNARD
• Citation: Kuhn v. Protestant Episcopal House of Mercy of City of New York, 133 N.Y. 207, 30 N.E. 853 (N.Y. 1892)
• Decision Date: 26 April 1892
• Parties: THE PEOPLE ex rel. MICHAEL G. KUHN, Respondent, v. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL HOUSE OF MERCY of the City of New York, Appellant.

133 N.Y. 207

30 N.E. 853

PEOPLE ex rel. KUHN

v.PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL HOUSE OF MERCY OF CITY OF NEW YORK.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 26, 1892.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, first department.

Petition by M. G. Kuhn for writ of habeas corpus to obtain the release of Josephine Kuhn from the Protestant Episcopal House of Mercy of the City of New York. From an order of the general term affirming an order of the special term discharging the person detained, and an order overruling a demurrer to petitioner's traverse of respondent's return, respondent appeals. Reversed.

ANDREWS and FINCH, JJ., dissenting. 17 N. Y. Supp. 166, reversed.

Noel Gale,(Elbridge T. Gerry, of counsel,) for appellant.

Andrew Comstock, for respondent.

MAYNARD, J.

The relator's daughter was, upon his application, committed by a police justice in New York city, January 13, 1889, to the custody of the appellant during her minority, unless sooner discharged by the trustees or managers, under chapter 353 of the Laws of 1886, which amended section 1466 of the consolidation act.¹ The commitment recited that it had been proven to the satisfaction of the magistrate, by competent testimony, and by the confession of the daughter, that she was then of the age of 17 years, and had been found associating with vicious and dissolute persons, and was willfully disobedient to her parent and guardian, and was in danger of becoming morally depraved. It adjudged that the several facts thus recited were true. On August 28, 1891, the relator sued out a writ of habeas corpus in the supreme court, in substance, alleging that his daughter at the time of her commitment was 19 years of age; that her minority terminated May 27, 1891; and that she was therefore entitled to be discharged from the custody of the appellant. The return set forth the commitment as the cause of detention. The relator traversed the return, overring that her age was erroneously stated in the commitment; that no evidence was given before the police justice upon the subject; and that she was, in fact, at the time of the application for the writ, over 21. The appellant demurred to the traverse upon the specific ground that the proceedings upon which the commitment was based, and the facts therein recited and adjudged, could not be reviewed in this manner. The demurrer was overruled, and a hearing ordered, at which the relator and a woman who lived in the same house at the time of the daughter's birth testified that she was born in May, 1870. The court thereupon, in an order reciting the proceedings, adjudged that she had attained her majority, and directed the appellant to discharge her from custody. This order was affirmed at general term, and an appeal taken to this court.

We think the demurrer to the traverse should have been sustained, the proceeding dismissed, and the relator's daughter remanded to the custody of the appellant. The age of the daughter was a fact material to the jurisdiction of the police justice, which he was expressly authorized by the statute to ascertain, and which he did determine upon proofs submitted to him; and his adjudication in this respect cannot be questioned in this proceeding. It is not denied that the commitment has all the force and effect of a final judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, under the provisions of the Code regulating the procedure in habeas corpus cases. Code, § 2016; Matter of Moses, 1 N. Y. Crim. R. 508;Matter of Wright, 29 Hun, 357;Matter of Donohue, 1 Abb. N. C. 1;People v. Liscomb, 60 N. Y. 559;People v. Juvenile Asylum, 12 Abb. Pr. 92;Matter of Baker, 11 How. Pr. 418;People v. New York Catholic Protectory, 106 N. Y. 604, 13 N. E. Rep. 435. The degree of its conclusiveness is not affected by the grade of the tribunal from which it emanates. The rule has the same application to the judgments of inferior as of superior courts. These principles have been so often enunciated as to become elementary, and their correctness and force as general propositions of law are not disputed by the respondent. But it is insisted that they are not applicable to the point involved upon this appeal; that they are limited to jurisdictional facts determined by the court which renders the judgment to have an existence, and do not preclude an inquiry into any other matter, which may tend to show that the imprisonment is unlawful. Generally speaking, this is undoubtedly true, but the jurisdictional facts referred to are not simply those which must exist before the criminal court can lawfully take any cognizance of the case, but they include every fact which the court is authorized by law to determine, and which it does adjudicate in rendering the judgment under which the prisoner is detained.

In the present case, if the police justice was limited in determining the age of relator's daughter to an inquiry as to whether she was over 12 and under 21, the question of her exact age would be an issuable fact in any proceeding which might be brought to secure her release upon the ground that her term of detention had expired. But if it was the duty of the magistrate to ascertain and determine her precise age, and include it in the commitment, his determination cannot be attacked in any collateral proceeding. The act of 1886 expressly requires the age of the delinquent to be stated. This provision...