State v. Courser

• Decision Date: 13 July 1939
• Docket Number: 27527.
• Citation: 199 Wash. 559,92 P.2d 264
• Parties: STATE v. COURSER.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

92 P.2d 264

199 Wash. 559

STATE v. COURSER.

No. 27527.

Supreme Court of Washington

July 13, 1939

Department 2.

Ralph Courser was convicted on a charge of being an habitual criminal, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; James B. Kinne, judge.

Ralph Courser, per se.

B. Gray Warner and John Caughlin, both of Seattle, for the State.

SIMPSON Justice.

October 24, 1938, defendant Ralph Courser was convicted in the superior court of King county of robbery and attempted robbery. Shortly thereafter and Before judgment and sentence were imposed, the prosecuting attorney filed a supplementary information charging defendant under Rem.Rev.Stat. § 2286 [P.C. § 8721], with being an habitual criminal. The supplemental information charged the defendant with having been previously convicted of the crime of grand larceny in the superior court of King county January 24, 1930, and of the crime of attempted robbery in the same court December 29 1931.

Defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges contained in the supplemental information. He was tried to a jury, found guilty, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He has appealed from that judgment and sentence.

Appellant assigns error on the part of the trial court in the denial of the motion for a new trial.

Appellant was unable, because of his financial condition, to procure counsel to defend him, and the court appointed a member of the Seattle Bar to represent him at the trial.

Appellant urges that his attorney was, because of lack of experience, incompetent to represent him properly during the trial of the case. The record Before us does not disclose the attorney's length of service nor his experience or lack of experience in trials. However, an examination of the record leads us to agree with the trial court that appellant was properly and ably represented during the trial of the case, and in all proceedings relating thereto.

The next error presented is the introduction in evidence of the records of the state penitentiary and of the state reformatory.

In order to establish prior convictions and to identify the appellant as the individual convicted, the respondent adopted the identical procedure followed during the trial in the case of State v. Johnson, 194 Wash. 438, 78 P.2d 561 save in the instant case the superintendents' signatures were not certified by any official's certificate.

The certified copies of the judgments in the two other cases were admitted in evidence without objection. Then, in order to identify defendant as having been in prison in the penitentiary and in the reformatory, the state introduced, over the objection of appellant, exhibits 3 and 4, being copies of fingerprint records and pictures of appellant certified by J. M. McCauley as warden or superintendent of the state penitentiary and George W. Roup, as superintendent of the Washington State Reformatory, respectively.

Appellant's contention is that the superintendents of the two penal institutions are not charged with the keeping of fingerprint records and are not custodians thereof.

It is true that our statutes do not in so many words authorize the superintendents of the penitentiary and reformatory to take and keep as part of their official files and records pictures and fingerprints of the inmates of those institutions. However, the statute governing the penitentiary does in effect authorize the superintendent to make and retain such records.

Rem.Rev.Stat. § 10213, states:

'The superintendent shall reside at the penitentiary in a house provided and furnished at the expense of the state, as may be ordered by the board, and it shall be his duty----

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'2. To supervise the government, discipline, and police of the penitentiary, and to enforce all orders and regulations of the board in respect to the penitentiary. He shall keep a registry of the convicts, in which shall be entered the names of each convict, the crime for which he is convicted, the period of his sentence, from what county sentenced, by what court sentenced, his nativity, to what degree educated, an accurate description of his person, and whether he has previously been confined in a prison in this or any other state, and if so where, and how he was discharged.'

Likewise the director of business control and the superintendent of the state reformatory are entrusted with the exercise of discretion requisite to the orderly conduct of the affairs of the institution. Photographs and fingerprints of inmates may be kept incident thereto.

The statutes, Rem.Rev.Stat. §§ 10280-1 to 10280-16, governing the state reformatory, do not outline the duties of the superintendent of that institution, but leave its management and control to the director of business control, and therefore appellant urges that a certified record in the custody of the reformatory must be signed by the director to be admissible.

The earlier statutes, 2 Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 8577, 8580, 8590, and 8593, were in all material respects like the existing statutes in that there was no express provision for the taking of photographs and fingerprints of inmates, and neither the duties nor the authority of the superintendent were outlined or defined. The former statutes differed from the existing ones in that they entrusted the management and control of the institution to a board of managers.

In Hodgeman v. Olsen, 86 Wash. 615, 150 P. 1122, 1123, L.R.A.1916A, 739, this court had occasion to interpret the old statute as it related to the duty and authority of the superintendent of the reformatory to secure and retain as part of the records of the institution photographs and certain definite descriptions of persons sentenced to it. This court, speaking through Judge Ellis, stated, after reciting the provisions of the old statute:

'It is manifest from these provisions, and indeed from the entire statute, that the Legislature has made no attempt to lay down a complete system of specific rules and regulations for the management of the institution or the care and treatment of the inmates, but has only undertaken to outline the powers and duties of the board of managers and superintendent in the broadest of terms. It is obvious that, if these officers were required to look to the statute for specific rules of conduct, they would find none. They would be powerless to inaugurate any adequate executive system for carrying out the general powers conferred or performing the duties so broadly imposed. The Legislature has deemed it inexpedient to attempt any promulgation of specific rules, doubtless because of their necessary manifold scope, and because to do so would on the principle expressio unius exclusio alterius, deny to the officers in charge the power to employ those means which practical experience might demonstrate as best calculated to meet the full purpose of the law. It would be practically impossible to enumerate in the statute all of the powers necessary to the management of such an institution and the control of its inmates. By conferring general powers and imposing general duties, the Legislature has by necessary implication accorded to the officers in charge all those powers which experience has proven necessary and such as are customarily employed in the management of penal institutions. In this connection we call attention to the fact that the Legislature has been little more specific in promulgating rules...