Trueblood v. Tinsley
Decision Date | 28 March 1963 |
Docket Number | No. 7225.,7225. |
Parties | Otis Charles TRUEBLOOD, Appellant, v. Harry S. TINSLEY, Warden, Colorado State Penitentiary, Appellee. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Samuel D. Menin, Denver, Colo., for appellant.
John E. Bush, Asst. Atty. Gen. of Colorado (Duke W. Dunbar, Atty. Gen., of Colorado, and Frank E. Hickey, Deputy Atty. Gen., of Colorado, were with him on the brief), for appellee.
Before BRATTON, LEWIS and HILL, Circuit Judges.
Otis Charles Trueblood, petitioner in this proceeding in habeas corpus, was convicted in the District Court of the City and County of Denver, Colorado, of the offense of assaulting and taking indecent liberties with a girl under sixteen years of age; and he was sentenced to an indeterminate term of not less than one day or more than life in the state penitentiary. By petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed in the state court, petitioner challenged the judgment and sentence on the ground that under the law of Colorado the maximum punishment which could have been imposed upon him in the criminal case was confinement in the penitentiary for not more than ten years. The petition was denied; the denial was affirmed, Trueblood v. Tinsley, Colo., 366 P.2d 655; and certiorari was denied, 370 U.S. 929, 82 S. Ct. 1570, 8 L.Ed.2d 507.
Having exhausted his remedy in the state courts, petitioner instituted in the United States Court for Colorado this proceeding in habeas corpus to obtain his discharge from further confinement. The basis of the asserted right to discharge was that section 40-2-32 of the Colorado Revised Statutes 1953 fixes a penalty of confinement of not more than ten years for the offense for which he was convicted; that he should have been sentenced under that statute; that instead, the court erroneously sentenced him to an indeterminate term of not less than one day or more than life under section 39-19-1, Colorado Revised Statutes 1953, Perm.Cum.Supp.; and that the imposition of sentence upon him under that statute resulted in the denial of equal protection of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The writ was denied and the proceeding is here on appeal.
While petitioner expresses doubt respecting the constitutional validity of section 39-19-1, supra, under any and all circumstances, the nub of the primary contention urged for reversal of the judgment denying the petition for the writ in this case is that the court lacked jurisdiction to impose sentence under such statute until a psychiatric examination had been made of him and a psychiatric report had been submitted in which it was found that he constituted a threat of bodily harm to members of the public, or that he was an habitual offender and mentally ill and that he was treatable under the act; and that the court did not have before it a report containing such requisite findings. Section 40-2-32, Colorado Revised Statutes 1953 provides in presently pertinent part that the punishment for assaulting and taking indecent liberties with a person...
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