delivered the opinion of the court.
The specification of errors in the brief of counsel is as follows: “The contention of the plaintiff in error is that the sentence under which he is now held puts him twice in jeop *157 ardy, and that such double jeopardy abridges his privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States, and deprives him of his liberty without due process of law.”
Laying out of view the suggestion that the immunity from double jeopardy or double punishment of a citizen of Massachusetts, in Massachusetts, is an immunity possessed by him as a citizen of the United States as contradistinguished from a citizen of Massachusetts, we inquire whether any law of Massachusetts abridges such an immunity, and whether that or any other action of that Commonwealth deprives plaintiff in error of his liberty without due process of law. If there be no such law, and if he is suffering no such deprivation, we need not be curious in explanation of the particular ground of our exercise of jurisdiction.
The statutes of Massachusetts have provided since 1851 (act of April 30, 1851, c. 87) that “ when a final judgment in a criminal case is reversed by the Supreme Judicial Court on account of error in the sentence,, the court may render such judgment therein as should have been rendered, ■ or may remand the case for that purpose to the court before which the conviction was had.” Acts of 1851, p. 602, c. 87; Pub. St. c. 187, § 13.
In this case it was on account of error in the sentence as originally imposed that that sentence was set aside. All the proceedings prior thereto stood unimpugned, and the Superior Court merely rendered the judgment which should have been rendered before. And this was done under the statute by direction of the Supreme Judicial Court, whose interposition had been invoked by plaintiff in error.
The legal effect of the statute was to make it a condition of the bringing of writs of error in criminal cases that if the error was one in the award of punishment only, that error should be corrected, and, as remarked by Chief Justice Shaw, this did not disturb the fundamental principles of right.
Jacquins
v.
Commonwealth,
As this statute was reasonable, was intended for the benefit of the accused as well as of the community, and was entirely within the admitted powers of the State, we are unable to.see that it is in itself open to attack as being unconstitutional; and as this plaintiff in error set the proceedings in question in motion, and they conformed to the statute, we do not perceive how they can be regarded as otherwise than valid.
In prosecuting his'former writ of error plaintiff in error voluntarily accepted the result, and it is well settled that a convicted person cannot by his own act avoid the jeopardy in which he stands, and then assert it as a bar to subsequent jeopardy.
Ball
v.
United States,
*159 On their writ of error this court held that a general verdict of acquittal upon the issue of not guilty to an indictment undertaking to charge murder, and not objected to before the verdict as insufficient in that respect, is a bar to a second indictment for the same killing. Mr. Justice Gray, delivering the opinion, sail!:
“An acquittal before a court having no jurisdiction is, of course, like all the proceedings in the case, absolutely void, and therefore no bar to subsequent indictment and trial in a court which has jurisdiction of the offense.
Commonwealth
v.
Peters,
The judgment was reversed as to Millard F. Ball, and judgment rendered for him upon his plea of former acquittal.
But as to John C. Ball and Boutwell, it was ruled that the Circuit Court rightly overruled their plea of former jeopardy, and it was said (
“ Their plea of former conviction cannot be sustained, because upon a writ of error, sued out by themselves, the judgment and sentence against them were reversed, and the indictment ordered to be dismissed. How far, if they had taken no steps to set aside the proceedings in the former case, the verdict and sentence therein could have been held to bar a new indictment against them, need not be considered, because it is quite clear that a defendant, who procures a judgment against him upon an indictment to be set aside, may be tried anew upon the same indictment, or upon another indictment, for the same offense of which he had been convicted. Hopt v. Utah,104 U. S. 631 ;110 U. S. 574 ;114 U. S. 488 ;120 U. S. 430 ; Regina v. Drury, *160 3 Cox Crim. Cas. 544; S. C. 3 Car. & Kirw. 193; Commonwealth v. Gould,12 Gray, 171 .”
Tested by these rulings, plaintiff in error’s original sentence was not void but voidable, and if the sentence had been complied with he could not have been punished again for the same offense.
Commonwealth
v. Loud,
In
Ex parte
Lange,
We repeat that this is not a case in which the court undertook to impose in invitam a second or additional sentence for the same offense, or to substitute one sentence for another. On the contrary, plaintiff in error availed himself of his right to have the first sentence annulled so that another sentence might be rendered. And as the decision which he sought and obtained involved the determination that he had been improperly sentenced under chapter 504 of the Statutes of 1895, providing for so-called indeterminate sentences, but should have been sentenced under antecedent statutes, which differed from that, it followed that the second sentence must be a new sentence to the extent of those differences, and might turn out to be for a longer period of imprisonment.
Chapter 504 of the Statutes of 1895 provided for the establishment by the court of a maximum and minimum term.of
*161
imprisonment, and for a permit to the convict to be at liberty after the expiration of the minimum term, some changes being made in this regard by chapter 371 of the Statutes of 1898. Section 20 of chapter 222 of the Public Statutes, in force when the offences charged were committed, provided for certain deductions to be made for good behavior. These and other statutes bearing on the subject are fully set forth,and examined in
Murphy
v. Commonwealth,
But we agree with the Supreme Judicial Court in the opinion that even if this were so, it would make no difference in principle so far as the validity of the second sentence was concerned.
In
Jacquins' Case,
In the case at bar, the accused was originally sentenced to imprisonment for the term of not less than ten nor more than fifteen years. This being set aside, and the Superior Court, being manifestly of opinion that imprisonment for twelve years and six months was the punishment demanded under the circumstances, deducted from twelve }mars and six months, two years, seven months and nine days, which he had already served, and sentenced him to nine years, ten months and twenty-one days. As the original sentence had been vacated on the application of the accused it is clear that if the second sentence were productive .of any injustice the remedy was to be obtained in another quarter and did not rest with the court.
The Superior Court, being obliged to render a specific sentence, deducted the time Murphy had served notwithstanding the case really occupied the same posture as if he had sued.out his writ of error on the day he was first sentenced, and the mere fact that by reason of his delay in doing so he had served a
*162
portion of the erroneous sentence could not entitle him to assert that he was being twice punished. Perhaps the court was the more moved to do this because six months after Murphy had been sent to the state prison the Supreme Judicial Court indicated in
Commonwealth
v. Brown,
And so as to the infliction of one day’s solitary confinement. The Massachusetts statutes provide that where the punishment of imprisonment in the state prison is awarded, solitary confinement not exceeding twenty days at a time shall form part thereof. This requirement was complied with here by the infliction of one day. This was part of the sentence, but not in itself a distinct and separate punishment, and when the sentence was vacated the second sentence ■ necessarily contained some solitary confinement as part of the imprisonment. Apparently this might have been dispensed with by the consent of the convict, but this he refused to give.
In
People ex rel. Trezza
v.
Brush,
Trezza also applied to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York for a writ of
habeas
corpus, which the court refused to grant, and its order was affirmed by this court on appeal.
In
McElvaine
v. Brush,
In
Brown
v.
New
Jersey,
tJudgment affirmed,
