75 Cal. 226 | Cal. | 1888
—The complaint upon which the petitioner was arrested, tried, and convicted charged that “said Henry Turner committed the crime of petit larceny, a misdemeanor, as follows, to wit; The said Henry Turner, on or about the thirteenth day of February, 1888, at the city of Stockton, county of San Joaquin, and state of California, did willfully, unlawfully, and felo
The return of the sheriff shows that the petitioner is held in custody by virtue of a certified copy of the judgment of the police court, the material portion of which is as follows: “ Whereas, the said Henry Turner, having been duly convicted in this court of the crime of willfully and unlawfully stealing, taking, and carrying away certain personal property, the same being the property of the state of California, and of the value of four dollars or thereabouts, a misdemeanor; it is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the said defendant be punished by a fine of eighty dollars, and in default of the payment of such fine, that he be imprisoned in the county jail of San Joaquin County, California, until said fine is satisfied, said imprisonment to be at the rate of one day for each two dollars of said fine.”
Counsel for petitioner has made a very ingenious argument on behalf of his client, but has failed to convince me that the judgment is void. The distinction between a void and a voidable judgment is sometimes very nice, and the judgment will fall under the one class or the other accordingly as it is regarded for different purposes. In some of the cases cited the commitments were for the purpose of holding the defendant to answer. After trial and conviction, the commitment is of a higher dignity than an ordinary commitment holding to answer. This is true with courts, both of special or limited jurisdiction and those of general jurisdiction.' The judgment of a court of inferior jurisdiction is, to a great extent, as far beyond the reach of collateral attack by the writ of habeas corpus as the judgments of higher courts are. (Church on Habeas Corpus, sec. 240.)
The case of Ex parte Ah Cha, 40 Cal. 426, cited by petitioner, was overruled in Ex parte Max, 44 Cal. 580, where it was held that if the complaint was in all respects sufficient, and the offense of which the petitioner was convicted was one within the scope of the indictment, and the judgment one which the court had the authority to render upon the appearance and plea, there was jurisdiction, and all other questions were matters of mere error, which could not be inquired into upon the writ of habeas corpus.
It is contended that the judgment before us is void because it fails to state all the necessary elements,—the word “feloniously” and the date being omitted,—and that, therefore, the judgment would be no protection to the defendant upon another charge for the same offense alleged in the complaint. But if the petitioner should ever have the misfortune to require evidence in support of such a plea of former conviction, he will be entitled to the whole record, and not simply to the judgment. (Ex parte Ring, 28 Cal. 253.) He will be entitled to introduce in evidence in support of that plea, not only the judgment, but the complaint, and the docket of the justice. The entries in the docket of the police judge show clearly a plea of not guilty, waiver of jury trial, date of trial, issuance of subpoenas, examination of witnesses, argument of counsel, and submission of the cause. It then recites: “The court finds the defendant guilty as charged,
Petitioner is remanded.