Case ID: va_46/html/0692-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Logan’s Case.
    
    
      A prisoner being sentenced by the Court before which he was tried, to confinement in the penitentiary for a less time than is authorized by the law for the offence of which he was convicted, the Circuit Court of Henrico and the City of Richmond may, upon the proper proceedings had before that Court, correct the error, and sentence the prisoner for the shortest period fixed by the statute for the offence of which he was convicted.
    The prisoner, who was a free negro, was prosecuted for burning a stable ; and the Court found him guilty, and adjudged him to be confined in the penitentiary for two years.
    After the prisoner was taken to the penitentiary, the superintendent thereof applied to the Circuit Court of Henrico and the City of Richmond, in the mode prescribed by the act of Assembly, and charged that there was manifest error on the face of the record of the Court which tried the.prisoner, in fixing the period of his confinement in the penitentiary at two instead of five years; which last period, he alleged, was, at the time of the commission of the offence, and ever since had been, the shortest period for which the offence of which the prisoner was found guilty, was punishable in a free negro.
    The .prisoner was brought before the Court, and pleaded that there was no error in the record; but the Court held, that there was error, and adjudged the prisoner to be confined in the penitentiary three years in addition to the two years fixed by the judgment of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Whereupon the prisoner applied to this Court for a writ of error.
    
      Trigg, for the prisoner.
   By the Court.

The writ of error is refused.