State Ex Rel. Linick v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 18 October 1940
• Parties: STATE ex rel. LINICK v. COLEMAN, Sheriff.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

198 So. 100

144 Fla. 458

STATE ex rel. LINICK v. COLEMAN, Sheriff.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

October 18, 1940

Rehearing Denied Nov. 4, 1940.

Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; Arthur Gomez, Judge.

Habeas corpus proceeding by the State of Florida, on the relation of Fred Linick, against the Honorable D. C. Coleman, as Sheriff of Dade County, Florida, to obtain the release of relator from custody of the Sheriff. To review a judgment remanding relator to custody of Sheriff, the relator brings error.

Affirmed.

COUNSEL R. K. Bell, of Miami, for plaintiff in error.

George Couper Gibbs, Atty. Gen., and William Fisher Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.

OPINION

BUFORD Justice.

On writ of error we review judgment remanding petitioner in habeas corpus proceedings.

The plaintiff in error was convicted in the Court of Crimes of Dade County on the 20th day of May, 1940, the judgment entered being:

'Court of Crimes, Dade County, Florida.

' State of Florida v. Fred Linick. No. 9648.

'It appearing unto this Court that you, Fred Linick, have been regularly tried and convicted of Selling Motor Vehicles without Delivering Certificate of Title

'It is therefore the judgment of the law and it is hereby adjudged that you are and stand guilty of Selling Motor Vehicle without delivering certificate of Title

'It is further considered, ordered and adjudged that you be confined at hard labor in the County Jail for a term of sixty (60) days

'Done and ordered in open Court at Miami, Dade County, Florida, this 20 day of May A. D. 1940,

'Wayne Allen, Judge.'

The information under which the conviction occurred was in the following language:

'Information for Selling a Motor Vehicle without Delivering Certificate of Title.

'The State of Florida vs. Fred Linick

'In the Name and by Authority of the State of Florida:

'Robt. R. Taylor, County Solicitor for the County of Dade, prosecuting for the State of Florida, in the said County under oath information makes that Fred Linick of the County of Dade and State of Florida, on the 14th day of August in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight, in the County and State aforesaid, did then and there sell to D. M. Gott, a certain motor vehicle to-wit: 1929 Ford Coach, and did fail to deliver to said purchaser or transferree, to-wit D. M. Gott, a certificate of title to said automobile, and at the time of the delivery to him of such motor vehicle,

'Contrary to the form of the Statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Florida.'

The information is drawn under the provisions of Sec. 3979, C.G.L., being Chapter 9157, Acts of 1923.

Plaintiff in error submits three (3) questions to this Court. In the first question he challenges the sufficiency of the Information upon the ground that it did not allege that 'a certificate of title had been issued.' In the second question he challenges the sufficiency of the adjudication of guilt of the offense sought to be charged under the statute, and in the third question he challenges the action of the lower court in remanding the petitioner.

The case is ruled by the opinion and judgment in Re Robinson, 73 Fla. 1068, 75 So. 604, L.R.A.1918B, 1148, where we held:

'Habeas corpus is not a remedy for relief against indictments charging criminal offenses defectively or inartificially, though it seems to be a remedy where an indictment charges as an offense an act which, at the time of its commission, the law did not make criminal. In the former case, the detention of the accused is not without jurisdiction, though in the latter it is held to be so on the ground that there is no law punishing the act.

'Where habeas corpus is invoked to obtain the discharge of a person held in custody to answer a charge of crime, it must be shown that the statute under which the charge is made is invalid, or that the charge as made is not merely defective in its allegations, but wholly fails to state any offense under the laws of the state.

'The writ of habeas corpus cannot be used as a substitute for a motion to quash or a writ of error or an appeal.

'The right to attack an information by...