Case ID: cal_119/html/0487-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "THE COURT.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[Crim. No. 383.
    In Bank.
    December 30, 1897.]
    Ex parte R. W. RUFFIN on Habeas Corpus.
    •Criminal Law—Defrauding Innkeeper—Statute not Repealed—Habeas Corpus.—The act of March 1, 1889, adding a new section to the Penal Code, known as section 537, relating to defrauding proprietors and managers of hotels, inns, restaurants, boarding-houses, and lodging-houses, was not repealed by an amendment to another section 537 of the Penal Code established by the act of March 10, 1887, relative to personal property mortgaged, such amendatory act relating to the subject matter of the removal, sale, or subsequent encumbrance of mortgaged chattels; and a person convicted of the crime of defrauding an innkeeper under the act of March 1, 1889, subsequent to said amendatory act, cannot be released upon habeas corpus, upon the ground that the act defining the crime was repealed, nor upon the ground that the act of March 1, 1889, was unconstitutional.
    
      APPLICATION for writ of habeas corpus from the Supreme Court to the sheriff of the City and County of San Francisco, to test the validity of a judgment of conviction of the Police Court of said City and County. Charles T. Conlan, Judge.
    The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
    Robert Ash, and George Hayford, for Petitioner.
   THE COURT.

The petitioner is imprisoned under a judgment convicting him of defrauding an innkeeper. He demands his release upon the ground that the statute creating the offense has been repealed.

On March 10, 1887, a statute was enacted under the following title: “An act to add a new section to the Penal Code, to be known as section 537, relative to personal property mortgaged.”

March 1, 1889, another statute was enacted under the following title: “An act to add a new section to the Penal Code, to be known as section 537, relating to defrauding proprietors and managers of hotels, inns, restaurants, boarding-houses, and lodging-houses.”

By these statutes two new sections were added to the Penal Code, each numbered 537.

March 9, 1893, another statute was enacted under the following title: “An act to amend section 537 of the Penal Code and to add a new section thereto, to be known and designated as section 538, relating to the removal, sale, or subsequent encumbrance of mortgaged chattels.”

The contention on the part of petitioner is that this last cited act, which relates exclusively to the subject indicated by its title, repealed the act of 1889, by which the crime of defrauding innkeepers was defined, as well as the act of 1887, defining the crime of defrauding mortgagees of personal property. We think it clear that it repealed only the last-mentioned act.

There is no merit in the further contention that the act of 1889 is unconstitutional.

Writ denied.

Rehearing denied.