United States v. Harman

• Decision Date: 01 June 1895
• Docket Number: 2,584.
• Citation: 68 F. 472
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. HARMAN.

68 F. 472

UNITED STATES v. HARMAN.

No. 2,584.

United States District Court, D. Kansas, First Division.

June 1, 1895

W. C Perry, U.S. Atty.

David Overmeyer, for defendant.

PHILLIPS District Judge (after stating the facts).

It would be an idle labor for this court to enter upon an enlarged discussion of the distinction between erroneous, or voidable, and void judgments. As applied to the facts of this case, the ruling of the United States circuit court judge, on writ of error, is, that the omission of the trial court, in the sentence, of the words 'at hard labor' rendered 'the judgment absolutely void.' Harman v U.S., 50 F. 922. The principles of law are reviewed in Re Bonner, 151 U.S. 242, 14 Sup.Ct. 323. The solicitor general, on behalf of the government, with vigorous insistence, sought to have the court hold that, where the trial court erred in imposing a sentence different from that prescribed by the statute, the sentence was only voidable and, therefore, only reversible for error, in contradistinction to avoid judgment. But the court, through Mr. Justice Field, combated and overruled the contention, and distinctly held that after verdict of guilty the only sentence both 'as to the extent or the mode or the place of it' the court can give is one in conformity to the statute. The learned justice said: 'The proposition put forward by counsel that, if the court has authority to inflict the punishment prescribed, its action is not void though it pursues any form or mode which may commend itself to its discretion, is certainly not to be tolerated. ' Logically, therefore, it can make no difference whether the sentence imposes a greater or less punishment in severity than that prescribed by statute. It is the departure from 'the extent or form' prescribed by law that nullified it, because of the lack of power in the court to impose any other sentence, both as to extent and manner of executing it, than the statute directs. Woodruff v. U.S., 58 F. 766, and citations.

On the authority of the Bonner Case this defendant would have been discharged on writ of habeas corpus, because the sentence of the court to imprisonment, without the words 'at hard labor,' was a nullity, for want of power to so limit it. It must, therefore, logically follow that in respect of the imprisonment the case stands as if no judgment had been entered.

The cause being remanded by the circuit court judge, 'with instruction to proceed therein according to law,' the only question this court has now to determine is, what is the proceeding authorized by law? Did the circuit court mean that this court should now turn the defendant loose, unpunished for the offense of which he stands found guilty by the verdict of a lawful jury? The cause is not here for trial de novo. There was no error in the former trial. The whole proceedings up to and including the return and recording of the verdict were regular and lawful.

Whatever may be the diversity of opinion in different jurisdictions the rule is well established in the federal courts that in a case situated like this the trial court resumes jurisdiction of the case precisely at the point where the error supervened, which was after verdict, and it proceeds to render such judgment as it was authorized to render by the statute on such a verdict. In Coleman v. Tennessee, 97 U.S. 509-519, the prisoner was released on writ of habeas corpus from a sentence of a state court for homicide, for the reason that he was a soldier in the regular army at the time of the commission of the offense, and was not amenable to the jurisdiction of the civil courts. But the court held that, inasmuch as he was under sentence of a military court-martial for murder growing out of the same offense, he should not be set at liberty, but was ordered to 'be delivered up to the military...