State v. Paul

• Decision Date: 12 May 1925
• Docket Number: 19254.
• Citation: 134 Wash. 415,235 P. 960
• Parties: STATE ex rel. STEVENS v. PAUL, Judge.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

235 P. 960

134 Wash. 415

STATE ex rel. STEVENS v. PAUL, Judge.

No. 19254.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 12, 1925

Department 1.

Application by the State of Washington, on the relation of Edward Stevens, for a writ of prohibition against Charles H. Paul Judge of the Superior Court of King County. Writ denied.

E. F Kienstra, of Seattle, for plaintiff.

Ewing D. Colvin and Harry A. Rhodes, both of Seattle, for defendant.

ASKREN J.

Relator was charged with the crime of foregery in the first degree. He entered a plea, first, of not guilty; second, that he was mentally irresponsible at the time of the commission of the crime; third, that such mental irresponsibility had ceased to exist; and fourth, that he had become mentally responsible between the date set forth in the information and the date of the plea. At the close of trial the jury rendered a verdict finding that the defendant had committed the crime charged, but that they acquitted him because of his insanity or mental irresponsibility at the time of its commission, and that such mental irresponsibility or insanity continued and still existed, and that there was such a likelihood of relapse or recurrence of the insane condition that the defendant was not a safe person to be at large. While confined in jail awaiting sentence by the trial court application was made in this court for a writ of prohibition which set forth the foregoing facts, and in addition thereto that the trial court would, unless restrained, sentence the defendant to the criminally insane ward of the penitentiary; that no evidence was offered at the trial as to the mental condition of the defendant at the time of trial; and that the statute is unconstitutional.

Upon the return counsel for the trial court moved to dismiss the writ upon the ground that relator's remedy, if any, was by appeal. This contention must be sustained.

It is the settled law of this state that writs of prohibition will not lie where there is an adequate remedy by appeal. State ex rel. Martin v. Hinkle, 47 Wash. 157, 91 P. 640; State ex rel. McCalley v. Superior Court, 51 Wash. 572, 99 P. 740; State v. Tenney, 63 Wash. 486, 115 P. 1080.

Relator urges that he has no adequate remedy by appeal because, being insane, he is not permitted to be at liberty on bail pending such appeal, and that this distinguishes our previous decisions. But we think this is a distinction that is apparent rather than real....