Lane v. Com.

• Decision Date: 26 March 1894
• Parties: LANE v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

161 Mass. 120

36 N.E. 755

LANE v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

March 26, 1894

COUNSEL

T.E. Grover, for appellant.

G.C Travis, for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

HOLMES J.

We must take it that the plaintiff in error was convicted under Pub.St. c. 205, § 4, of endeavoring "to procure another person to commit perjury, though no perjury is committed." By that section the punishment is imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, or in jail not exceeding one year. The sentence was to the house of correction for two years. The plaintiff in error contends that the only sentences to the house of correction warranted by the statutes are either for one year, in substitution for imprisonment in the jail (a substitution authorized by Id. c. 215, § 3), or for a term not less than three nor more than five years, in substitution for imprisonment in the state prison (this substitution being authorized by Id. § 19). The argument is that the following section (section 20) forbids a sentence to the state prison for a less time than three years; that this represents a statute later than that taken up into Id. c. 205, § 4, and must control the general language of that section; and that the only effect of chapter 215, § 19, which represents an act later than chapter 205, § 4, but earlier than chapter 215, § 20, is to authorize a substitution of the house of correction for the state prison in a sentence which might have been executed in the latter.

The result contended for plainly is unintended, for it is that the sentence for the offense in question must be either for not exceeding one year, or for not less than three years, and that a sentence for two years is impossible. The language of section 19 is as follows: "When the punishment of solitary imprisonment and confinement at hard labor for a term not exceeding five years is awarded by the court against a convict, such sentence may be executed either in the state prison, jail, or house of correction, except as provided in the following section." The other sections must be read in connection with this, and the true construction has been settled by the court heretofore. "Under these provisions, a convict whose only prescribed punishment is by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of years, if the term actually awarded is less than three years, must undergo his sentence to hard labor and solitary imprisonment in...