Pettus v. Cranor, 32285
| Decision Date | 28 November 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 32285,32285 |
| Citation | 250 P.2d 542,41 Wn.2d 567 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | PETTUS, v. CRANOR, Superintendent of State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. |
Willard J. Roe, Spokane, for petitioner.
Smith Troy and Rudolph Naccarato, Olympia, for respondent.
Petitioner seeks a writ of habeas corpus from this court, alleging that he is illegally confined in the state penitentiary.
January 6, 1949, in the superior court for Spokane county, petitioner was sentenced to the penitentiary on his plea of guilty to the crime of assault in the second degree. For reasons which are not material, that judgment and sentence was vacated, and he was returned to Spokane county for trial.
A substitute information was filed against him, charging him in one count with the same offense of assault in the second degree, and in a second count with the violation of RCW 9.41.040, cf. Rem.Rev.Stat. (Sup.), § 2516-4, in that he had in his possession a revolver, which possession was alleged to be unlawful because petitioner previously had been convicted of a crime of violence, namely, burglary in the second degree.
His trial before a jury upon the substitute information, at which he was represented by counsel, resulted in a verdict of guilty on both counts. May 15, 1950, judgment and sentence was entered upon the verdict for a term of not more than ten years on each count, specifying that the terms should run concurrently and commence January 6, 1949, the date petitioner was first confined in the penitentiary upon his original plea of guilty to the charge in count I of the substitute information.
Petitioner questions the validity of his conviction upon two grounds. The first is that the language of count II of the substitute information brought before the jury his previous conviction, and thereby placed his character in issue when he had not testified as a witness in the case, and, in effect, compelled him to give evidence against himself in violation of Art. I, § 9, of the state constitution, and deprived him of a fair trial in violation of both the federal and state Constitutions.
This contention is foreclosed by State v. Tully, 1939, 198 Wash. 605, 89 P.2d 517. That was an appeal from a conviction upon an information containing four felony counts, one of which charged the same fellony as that alleged against petitioner in count II. In that case, as in this, the charge followed the language of the statute, and the joinder of the counts in the information was approved. We held that the statute was not unconstitutional, see State v. Krantz, 1945, 24 Wash.2d 350, 353, 164 P.2d 453, and that the prior conviction of a crime of violence is a fact which it is necessary for the state to allege and prove to obtain a...
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State v. Hickok
...criminal status, State v. Kelly, 52 Wash.2d 676, 678, 328 P.2d 362 (1958); of firearm possession by a felon, In re Pettus v. Cranor, 41 Wash.2d 567, 568, 250 P.2d 542 (1952), cert. denied, 345 U.S. 967, 73 S.Ct. 954, 97 L.Ed. 1385 (1953); and of first-degree escape, State v. Brown, 29 Wash.......
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...crime charged, it is not error to allow the jury to hear evidence on that issue." Roswell, 165 Wn.2d at 197 (citing Pettus v. Cranor, 41 Wn.2d 567, 568, 250 P.2d 542 (1952)). Prosecutorial Misconduct in Closing Wilhelm claims the prosecutor's rebuttal closing argument about the lack of evid......
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