State ex rel. Siehl v. Jorgenson

• Decision Date: 08 March 1929
• Docket Number: No. 27371.,27371.
• Citation: 224 N.W. 156,176 Minn. 572
• Parties: STATE ex rel. SIEHL v. JORGENSON, Sheriff.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

224 N.W. 156

176 Minn. 572

STATE ex rel. SIEHL v. JORGENSON, Sheriff.

No. 27371.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 8, 1929.

Appeal from District Court, Martin County; A. R. Fancher, Commissioner.

Habeas corpus by the State, on the relation of John Siehl, against G. H. Jorgenson, Sheriff. From an order denying his release, the relator appeals. Reversed, and relator discharged.

Leo J. Seifert and Frank E. Dougherty, both of Fairmont, for appellant.

G. A. Youngquist, Atty. Gen., and C. F. Gaarenstroom, Co. Atty., of Fairmont, for respondent.

HOLT, J.

Appeal from an order of the court commissioner denying relator's release in a habeas corpus proceeding and remanding him to the custody of respondent, the sheriff of Martin county.

The facts are these: Relator, on November 9, 1928, duly convicted of the crime of selling intoxicating liquor, was sentenced to confinement in the county jail of Martin county for a period of 80 days and to pay a fine of $250. The fine has been paid. He was committed on the day of his sentence to the county jail. While so confined and on November 12, 1928, he was duly adjudged insane and committed to the State Hospital for the Insane at St. Peter, where he was detained under said commitment until December 14, 1928, at which time he was discharged therefrom and returned to the jail and the custody of respondent. Relator's petition for the writ was issued after the expiration of 80 days from his commitment to the jail, but, deducting the time he was under detention in the hospital for the insane under the commitment from the probate court, he had been confined in the county jail only 50 days when the writ was granted.

The appeal presents the sole question whether a person serving a jail sentence, who, while so serving, is by judgment of the probate court committed to and confined in a state hospital for the insane, may have the time he is so involuntarily confined in the hospital credited upon the time of his jail sentence. Our statutes (sections 4529-4532, G. S. 1923) provide that a prisoner serving time in the state prison or the state reformatory, who is adjudged insane and committed to a state insane asylum, shall have the time he is confined in the latter counted as a part of the term of his sentence. This indicates a legislative policy of considering one who has commenced serving a sentence as continuing so to serve, even though it be necessary to keep him at an institution other than the one to which he was sentenced, so long as he is so kept involuntarily on his part by and under legal authority. In the case at bar, it is not questioned that the probate court properly exercised its power in ordering relator to be taken from the jail and confined at the insane hospital. Relator did not voluntarily absent himself from the county jail. It is argued that if a jail prisoner should become so sick that he had to be taken to a hospital for treatment, thus receiving a favor, the time there...