State Ex Rel. Padgett v. Windham

• Decision Date: 25 June 1935
• Citation: 162 So. 501,120 Fla. 206
• Parties: STATE ex rel. PADGETT v. WINDHAM, Sheriff, and three other cases.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

162 So. 501

120 Fla. 206

STATE ex rel. PADGETT v. WINDHAM, Sheriff, and three other cases.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

June 25, 1935

Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; Uly O. Thompson, Judge.

Habeas corpus proceeding by the State, on the relation of E. H Padgett, Fred Walston, D. F. Saxon, and D. J. Mahoney against G. A. Windham, as sheriff of Dade County, State of Florida. To review judgments, relators bring error.

Judgments affirmed.

COUNSEL

William K. Whitfield, H. H. Wells, and B. K Roberts, all of Tallahassee, and DuBose & Gordon, of Miami for plaintiffs in error.

Cary D. Landis, Atty. Gen., and Roy Campbell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.

OPINION

DAVIS Justice.

The judgments remanding the prisoners in these several cases to the custody of the sheriff must be affirmed by this court on the authority of the general rule stated in Bell v. Gregory, 89 Fla. 293, 103 So. 832, wherein it was held that in habeas corpus proceedings the Supreme Court will only inquire whether the complaint upon which the defendant is held, or has been convicted, charges a public offense, and will discharge persons in custody under criminal process only when it finds that to the charge attempted to be preferred, no criminality is attached by law.

Habeas corpus is not a remedy for relief against imprisonment under a warrant or other process that charges a criminal offence defectively or inartifically, even where the criminal charge, as stated, is wholly insufficient as against a demurrer or motion to quash interposed at the trial. Lewis v. Nelson, 62 Fla. 71, 56 So. 436; Ex parte Prince, 27 Fla. 196, 9 So. 659, 26 Am. St. Rep. 67; In re Robinson, 73 Fla. 1068, 75 So. 604, L. R. A. 1918B, 1148; Griswold v. State, 77 Fla. 505, 82 So. 44; Spooner v. Curtis, 85 Fla. 408, 96 So. 836; Lehman v. Sawyer, 106 Fla. 396, 143 So. 310.

In the present case, the informations upon which the plaintiffs in error were remanded to custody by the judgment of the court below were substantially as follows:

'Chas. A. Morehead, County Solicitor for the County of Dade, prosecuting for the State of Florida, in the said County, under oath, information makes that E. H. Padgett, D. J. Mahoney, D. F. Saxon and Fred Walston of the County of Dade and State of Florida, on the 7th day of December, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and thirty one, in the County and State aforesaid, did unlawfully and feloniously set up, promote and conduct a certain lottery for money, and other thing of value, by means of gambling and lottery devices, commonly known and designated as 'Slot Machines', and a further and more particular description of which is to the County Solicitor unknown, contrary to the form of the Statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Florida.'

It cannot be said that such information wholly fails to charge a crime against the laws of Florida under section 7667, C. G. L., section 5509, R. G. S., assuming (but not deciding) that such information is defective or insufficient as against a demurrer or motion to quash filed at the trial.

Appellate courts are properly reluctant to strike down on habeas corpus proceedings defectively or inartifically pleaded criminal...