7 Kan. App. 89 | Kan. Ct. App. | 1898
The opinion of the court was delivered b.y
It is contended by counsel for- petitioner-that the sentence of the - district court committing to the state reformatory is void for two reasons : (1) That the petitioner was under the age of fifteen years at the time of the sentence ; and, (2) because the sentence is indefinite in duration. Section 11 of chapter 134, General Statutes of 1897-, expressly provides that the sentence shall not fix a limit to its duration.' - -Upon the first proposition, evidence was tendered as to the age of the petitioner at the time he was sentenced. We deem it unnecessary to enter upon a consideration of either of these objections, as the warden does not pretend to be holding the petitioner upon the sentence of the district court committing the prisoner to the state .reformatory, but upon the resolution of the board of managers. But we will say that we are of the opinion that.neither of the contentions can be sustained. The finding and judgment of the court are conclusive upon the first, and the second objection is covered by the statute.
The important'question, and the question-upon
It is contended on behalf of the state that the transfer of a prisoner by the board of managers is disciplinary ; that it is transferring a prisoner from one branch of the penitentiary to another. This contention cannot be sustained. A commitment to the penitentiary involves an infamy to the person that does not attach to him by reason of a sentence to the reformatory. The supreme court, in Miller v. The State, 2 Kan. 175, says that the term “penitentiary” means a place of punishment in which convicts are sentenced to confinement and hard labor. A commitment to the state industrial reformatory is not a sentence to imprisonment with hard labor. A sentence and commitment to the penitentiary deprives a person of his civil rights. Does such commitment to the state industrial reformatory work a deprivation of civil rights ?
The sentence of the district court does not authorize the commitment of the prisoner to the penitentiary. The board of managers could not, for the reasons above stated, by resolution or other act of theirs, lawfully commit the petitioner to the penitentiary.
The resolution of the board, set out it the return of the warden to the writ, constitutes no justification for the detention of the petitioner in the penitentiary, and it follows that he must be discharged from the warden’s custody.