56 S.E.2d 281 | Ga. | 1949
E. L. Sanders was convicted in Richmond County Superior Court of four crimes, and was sentenced to serve a minimum of two years and a maximum of ten years in each case, the sentences to run consecutively. On the 28th day of June, 1945, he was again sentenced by the Judge of the Superior Court of the Griffin Circuit to serve four years for the offense of escape. Later he escaped again, and was arrested and placed in the city jail by C. J. Wilson, Chief of Police of the City of Augusta. He thereupon filed a petition for the writ of habeas corpus with the Judge of the City Court of Augusta. On June 1, 1949, the Judge of the City Court of Augusta sustained the petition for the writ of habeas corpus, holding that all sentences imposed upon Sanders were void, for the reason that he had, in the trial of each of the cases, been denied his constitutional rights as provided for in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and in article 1, section 1, paragraph 5 of the Constitution of Georgia. In this proceeding, it appears that C. J. Wilson filed no formal answer, and that upon the date of the hearing of the habeas corpus proceeding in Augusta, an Assistant Attorney-General of Georgia and a representative of the State Board of Corrections of Georgia appeared, "and produced before the court certain documents, which they contended were abstracts of the sentences that had been imposed upon applicant, but there was no response filed in writing, either by C. J. Wilson, Chief of Police, nor anyone representing the State Board of Corrections of Georgia, or any other department of government." The petitioner was present at the time of the hearing. Thereafter, E. L. Sanders filed another habeas corpus proceeding with the Superior Court of Charlton County against M. C. McHan, Warden of the Public Works Camp in Charlton County, Georgia, alleging that he was being held illegally by said warden by virtue of certain sentences held to be void by the Judge of the City Court of Augusta on June 1, 1949. The date this petition was filed does not appear, but the petition was sworn to on July 1, 1949. Upon the trial of this case, it was agreed that it would be tried upon the record of the previous case before the Judge of the City Court of Augusta, and that record was introduced in evidence. There was also introduced in evidence a State warrant issued by the State Board of Corrections, dated May 26, 1949, alleging the convictions and sentences hereinbefore detailed, and that Sanders had *156 escaped, as authority under which McHan had retaken Sanders. There was also introduced an appearance bond, dated April 22, 1949, executed by Sanders, conditioned upon his appearance in the habeas corpus case before the Judge of the City Court of Augusta, approved by "L. W. Cooper, Judge M. C. C. of A." The trial judge on July 20, 1949, denied the prayer of this petition and dismissed the petition. The exception is to this judgment. Held:
1. "Where the applicant was held under sentences imposed upon him for violations of the criminal laws of the State in a county different from that in which the habeas corpus was pending, and where the applicant attacked the alternative portions of the sentences upon the ground that they were void, which attack the clerk of the superior court, acting in the place of the ordinary, sustained and rendered judgment discharging the applicant from restrained under such sentences, such judgment, being rendered by a tribunal having jurisdiction of the subject-matter, became conclusive, and the applicant could not be restrained under said sentences after the rendition of such judgment. . . In a second application for the writ of habeas corpus, brought by the applicant in the habeas corpus above referred to, where the sheriff of the county wherein said sentences were imposed set up that he was holding the applicant under said sentences and under two warrants issued by a justice of the peace of his county against the applicant, the judge of the superior court, who heard the second application for habeas corpus, erred in rejecting the proceedings and judgment in the first application for the writ of habeas corpus upon the ground that they were irrelevant and immaterial; but such proceedings and judgment should have been admitted by the judge, and upon such proof the applicant should have been discharged from further restraint under such sentences. . . The principle of the conclusiveness of judgments in habeas corpus cases has been recognized and enforced in both classes of cases. An order or judgment discharging a person in habeas corpus proceedings is conclusive in his favor that he is illegally held in custody, and is res judicata of all issues of law and fact necessarily involved in that result. A person discharged in habeas corpus proceedings can not lawfully be again arrested, imprisoned, restrained, or kept in custody for the same cause, or under the same sentence. McConologue's Case,
2. It is contended that the Judge of the City Court of Augusta was not authorized to discharge Sanders on habeas corpus proceedings, for the reason that he was, at the time, at liberty under bond, and was therefore not in custody. In the first place, this is a question that could, and should, have been raised in that case. In the next place, this contention appears to be without merit. In Whittle v. Jones,
This language was made use of in a habeas corpus proceeding involving the custody of a child but, in principle, we see no reason why the same rule should not apply in cases involving the legality of restraint of *158 one charged with crime. True it is that there is no provision of law for bond in habeas corpus proceedings in this State; however, when the parties are before the court, and present in court, we think that the better practice would be for the court to hear and decide the case on its merits, even though the applicant for habeas corpus may have been improperly admitted to bond. It follows that the judgment rendered in this case was error.
Judgment reversed. All the Justicesconcur.
